


Episode IX: The Final Balance

by sabby1



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Gen, beloved character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 08:50:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 27,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15239775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabby1/pseuds/sabby1
Summary: The RESISTANCE has been diminished.The remaining members have retreated to Ahch-To, hoping to replenish their numbers with the assistance of the far flung allies of the REPUBLIC.All hope rests on General Leia Organa’s ability to regain the confidence of the few surviving POPULIST senators and to assemble a new fleet to push back the conquering horde of the FIRST ORDER.Time is running out as Supreme Leader Kylo Ren’s overwhelming forces have occupied Chandrila and declared the city of Hanna the capital and seat of power of the burgeoning REN DYNASTY....





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my take on what an Episode 9 might look like continuing from where we left off with TLJ. Characters will be kept to canon standards and won't be doing anything that I can't honestly see them doing in canon. 
> 
> That said, I haven't seen a couple so doomed to shag as Kylo and Rey since Buffy and Spike. 
> 
> Also, this is a long haul and I haven't finished writing it completely. Bear with me, and any feedback will be greatly appreciated.
> 
> ~o~o~o~

**Episode IX - The Final Balance**

The RESISTANCE has been diminished.

The remaining members have retreated  
to Ahch-To, hoping to replenish their  
numbers with the assistance of the  
far flung allies of the REPUBLIC.

All hope rests on General Leia Organa’s  
ability to regain the confidence of the  
few surviving POPULIST senators and  
to assemble a new fleet to push back the  
conquering horde of the FIRST ORDER.

Time is running out as Supreme Leader  
Kylo Ren’s overwhelming forces have  
occupied Chandrila and declared the city  
of Hanna the capital and seat of power of  
the burgeoning REN DYNASTY....

**I**

When Rey started to dream about Ben Solo, she did not tell General Leia Organa. She certainly didn’t tell Finn, and it never occurred to her to tell Poe Dameron.

The first time it happened was after a night of drinking to celebrate Rose Tico’s recovery from her injuries during the battle of Crait. Poe had somehow managed to ferment Thala-siren milk into a reasonably digestible and only mildly disgusting liquor. Rose barely took three sips before she passed out. Finn carried her back to her hut, and Rey only managed one more glass after that before she staggered back to her own bunk inside the belly of the Millennium Falcon, leaving behind Poe and his off-key caterwauling of ad-libbed battle ballads.

She “woke up” to the smell of fresh grass and the feeling of warm sunshine on her back. When she opened her eyes, she saw a young boy with curly dark hair and darker eyes stretched out on the grass beside her with his arms linked behind his head as he stared up into the cloudless blue sky.

A distant rumbling grew closer and turned to a deafening roar as, one after the other, a cluster of airspeeders screamed by overhead.

“Some day, that’ll be me.”

When the boy jumped to his feet and ran off, she followed him through the unfamiliar lush environment to a luxurious white building she didn’t recognize. Rey kept a cautious distance and settled herself on a chair in the corner of the lavish country home’s living area while the little boy sat in the middle of the floor, watching a holoshow cartoon.

A door opened and closed somewhere, and the boy leapt from his seat and launched himself at the long legs of a man wearing dusty black pants and a sweat-stained white shirt.

“Did you win, dad? Did you win?”

She didn’t get to see the man’s face as he lifted the little boy up into his arms and swung him around. The man’s hair was several shades lighter than the boy’s and not nearly as curly.

“What do you think, champ?”

The voice was familiar, but Rey woke up with a pounding headache before she could remember why.

Three days after their arrival on Ahch-To, Rey decided to read the ancient Jedi texts she had stolen. In her absence, the temple had been destroyed, leaving the handful of tomes the only remnants of a once great religion. She struggled to understand the archaic, convoluted language. Mostly, she just looked at the illustrations of pretty trees and tiny creatures, Jedi weapons and stylized symbols.

The second time she dreamed was after a long day of training. The lightsaber had been destroyed, so the only weapon available to her was once again her staff. She felt more comfortable with it anyway. While the power of Luke Skywalker’s saber had felt right, handling the one-handed weapon never had. Rey ran through the motions of attack and defense, her opponent an unrelenting mossy boulder on a plateau above the churning sea, until she exhausted herself and collapsed.

When she opened her eyes again, she was freezing, curled into the corner of a balcony high up somewhere, looking out over the gleaming lights of a sprawling city. In the opposite corner sat the little boy with his knees drawn up to his chest, his hair blown askew by the fierce wind sweeping through the gaps between the banister pillars. His eyes were closed and his hands pressed tightly against his ears.

Indistinct voices rose from somewhere inside the brightly lit rooms behind them. A man and a woman were shouting at each other in anger.

Rey didn’t think about what she was doing. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and crawled across the icy marble toward the little boy. When she sat down beside him and wrapped one arm around his narrow shoulders, he flinched. His head jerked up, and he stared at her with an unreadable expression.

“How are you here?” he demanded.

“It’s just a dream,” she replied.

They sat in silence, Rey’s arm around his skinny shoulders as he tucked his curly head against her chest with his hands still pressed against his ears. The adults inside kept screaming at each other for a long time.

Rey woke up with a sneeze and a full body shudder some time before dawn. The wetness of the night had soaked through her clothes. She was freezing. Shaking her head at her own stupidity, she pulled herself together and stumbled through the darkness back to the Millennium Falcon.

Later that morning, she attended her first meeting of the Resistance since their arrival on Ahch-To. Assembled in the main lounge of the Millennium Falcon, they looked like a pathetic lot of refugees.

General Leia Organa seemed older and wearier after the battle of Crait. She still talked the talk, but her words sounded more hollow somehow, like a faded echo of her past beliefs.

“We must reach out to our allies on the Outer Rim again,” she said.

“I have tried all my contacts,” insisted Commander D’Acy, wrinkling her hawkish nose in disgust. “No one responded.”

“Larma,” Leia said with a tired sigh.

Commander D’Acy pursed her thin lips. “I will try again.”

Poe snorted. “Look, with all due respect, it’s going to take more than a couple old contacts and a bunch of soldiers willing to fight. We need people who can bankroll an army and a whole fleet of new ships if we’re going to have any chance of defeating the First Order.”

“Poe,” said Finn at the same time that D’Acy barked, “That’s enough, Captain.”

Poe relented but only barely. “It’s Commander now.”

D’Acy sniffed.

Rey watched the general’s resolute expression wither as she lowered her head and drew inward.

“Do we know yet if any of the senators or emissaries survived the destruction of the Hosnian system?”

Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix, whom Rey was still secretly referring to as “bun head girl”, shook her head.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Nothing on any of the officially established communication channels. If there are any survivors, they’re not willing to come out into the open.”

Leia Organa sighed. “Then I have no choice.”

“What do you mean?” Rey asked quietly.

“I’m going to have to drag them out.”

“General,” D’Acy gasped. “It’s too risky. If you get captured or killed-"

“Then I’ll still be a damn good symbol for the resistance.”

Rey flinched. This did not sound like the woman who had insisted, “We have everything we need,” only a few days ago.

“I have spent my life fighting for this cause,” Leia said calmly. “It has cost me my career, my home, and my family. I have buried more friends than I care to remember. If at this point it takes my life to save the Republic, then that’s exactly as much as I am willing to give.”

Rey shook her head. She was not listening to this old woman giving up on herself.

“Just one problem with that,” she said defiantly. “This ship, my ship, is the only one we’ve got, and there’s no way in hell I’m flying you into certain death.”

She stood up and left everyone gaping. Chewbacca screamed after her, but she wasn’t willing to listen to any more defeatist crap. If she’d wanted to give up, she could have done it a hundred different times in a hundred different places.

Rey kicked at a stone and ran until she reached the cliffs. She started climbing aimlessly, Leia Organa’s words echoing in her ears.

“Save the Republic”. What had the Republic ever done for anyone? It wasn’t about the Republic. It was about the people. The war needed to stop because people kept killing, and dying, and suffering.

“It’s time to let old things die.”

Kylo Ren’s voice rang so clear in her mind, Rey stumbled over her own feet, gripped by the fear that he had reopened their connection. She took a shaking breath, stood still, and listened.

Nothing. It was just a memory. She shook her head, wiped her face, and pushed on.

The weather turned. Slate gray clouds swirled into ominous black, split asunder with a deafening crack, and poured down hard, heavy rain that pelted her skin and impacted the ground like gravel.

“The Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels. Let it all die.”

She slipped, yelped, crashed against the wet rocks, and tumbled down a short ravine. When she landed, the ground beneath her was a mess of sodden tangled vines and dirt. She was staring down the hole that led to the dark side. She knew what was down there. A mirror with a thousand reflections and not a single answer.

“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.”

She passed out.

In her dream, it was a pleasantly warm day on the cusp of autumn. The softly swaying trees around her were starting to exchange their lush green foliage for burning red and yellow, shedding their leaves onto the cemented street below. The smell of rain and sweet decay weighed heavy on the air.

Footsteps echoed with hollow taps toward her from behind. Her boot rasped across the damp fallen leaves as she turned.

Time slowed like syrup dripping from a cold spoon as the boy ran past.

He was older now, maybe eight, maybe ten. His dark curls were longer, gathered at the nape of his neck with a leather string. His eyes glittered, a blissful smile on his face as he ran toward a couple in the distance.

“Mama! Dad! I saved it! I saved it!”

Rey frowned and swiveled her head back in the direction from which the boy had come. As she turned, the scene reversed itself like a holovid on rewind. She traced the footsteps of the backward running boy until he stopped under a tree like any of the other trees.

As she watched, rivulets of water crawled over the lines of his jaw and trailed their way up his soft cheeks. The glitter in his eyes had been the remnant of tears. He threw up his hand in desperation as a silent scream tore at his mouth.

Her eyes followed the outstretched arm toward the top of the tree. The moment she spotted the nest, time returned to its ordinary direction.

A baby snowbird smacked onto the ground with a dull wet slap.

The boy screamed.

Another baby bird was forced, squeaking and clawing, out of the nest. It stopped in mid air, several feet above the ground. Its wings did not move. It hung, suspended, round black eyes blinking in confusion. Then it began to shriek. It fluttered then beat its wings furiously, unable to go in any direction.

Rey turned her head to look at the boy. His tears had trailed back down his cheeks and disappeared beneath his chin. His mouth hung open as he breathed heavily, brows furrowed in concentration at his hand outstretched toward the baby bird.

“It’s okay to let it go now,” she said.

The boy startled. He looked at her with wide eyes.

Over her shoulder, the baby snowbird fluttered into the sky.

“It’s an old memory,” he said. “I would’ve let go anyway.”

They stood in silence, facing each other, as the trees shed their leaves into a clean autumn breeze.

“Aren’t you going to go tell your parents?” she asked.

“I did.” He turned his head to look down the road at the vague shadows of the couple in the distance. “It didn’t end well for me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**II**

Kylo Ren woke with a start. Every muscle in his body tensed against the need to move, he lay very still and stared at the slate gray ceiling above his head. The synthetic fiber of his sheets clung to his skin, rubbing his hair against the grain. The whir and hum of recycled air circulating through the vents droned in his ears; it smelled like nothing.

He was in his private chambers within the walls of the Senate Complex in Hanna City on Chandrila. Autumn on Hosnian Prime was a long time ago and far away.

It had only been a dream. Another dream of a lifetime before the darkness had laid claim to his soul.

But the fabric of his dreams had changed. Where he had been a thousand times before alone, now there was someone else. There was a girl he thought he knew.

The conflict endured.

Kylo Ren inhaled a long, empty breath, exhaled it slowly, and swung his legs out of bed. Today he would address the Knights of Ren, First Order High Command, and the citizens of the Inner Rim of the galaxy. Today was the beginning of a new dynasty.

He prepared his speech silently throughout his morning ablutions. As he stared at his reflection in the mirror, the furrow of his fresh scar gleamed across the side of his face. Kylo Ren smoothed back his hair, pulled it tight, and secured it at the nape of his neck with a leather cord. Let them see.

Pleasure traced a pointed claw down his spine as a memory crossed his mind. He had destroyed his helmet, a lackluster imitation of his grandfather’s, in a fit of pure fury. No more pretenses. No more hiding.

Clad in the familiar black uniform of the Knights, Kylo Ren exited his chambers and strode confidently past the stormtrooper guards posted at his door. They followed a few steps behind him without having to be told.

When he entered the conference room, the members of High Command were already assembled at the table. The Knights of Ren stood at attention alongside the wall. General Armitage Hux looked altogether much too pleased with himself. No doubt, the pale-faced cur was well into planning an ill-fated attempt at insurgency.

A pinprick of annoyance penetrated Ren’s calm demeanor. Kylo Ren knew no pardon for betrayal. He would keep Hux close, for now, but ultimately the man’s fate had already been sealed by his own unattainable ambitions.

Ren took his place at the head of the table and addressed the group while standing with his gloved hands folded over the back of his chair.

“Today we bring peace to the galaxy. The weak and corrupt Senate has been vanquished. The rebel scum have been driven to extinction. Now it is incumbent upon us to restore order and lead the planets into an age of prosperity and progress.”

As his eyes roamed over the faces of the assembled High Command, he barely resisted the urge to sneer. Their self-congratulatory preening and shameless greed would lead them right back into another debased, chaotic empire doomed to fail. These could not be the leaders of the future.

“To that end, I hereby order the immediate dissolution of the First Order High Command.”

Shocked gasps and outraged noises rumbled along the table. Hux’s face turned from pale to red, competing with his hair for the brightest pigment.

Kylo Ren smiled, allowing the Force to flow through him and into the room, silencing the bickering group with the oppressive weight of raw power.

“We are no longer at war. In times of peace we must look to a new order. A new council will be established, comprising emissaries from planets of all regions.”

“Another senate?” spat Hux.

Ren turned his head, looked into the watery blue eyes, and increased the pressure of the Force on the general’s mind.

“Nothing like the senate. They will provide personal counsel to the Supreme Leader here in Hanna and oversee the execution of the governmental agenda back on their own planets.”

A gray-haired member of the High Command writhed against the pressure of the Force to ask a question. Ren allowed it.

“Why Hanna?”

Kylo Ren wanted to shout, ‘Symbolism, you blistering idiot,’ but he refrained. Instead, he increased the pressure of the Force once more, watching the group of men and women cower before him.

“Why not?”

No one had anything else to say.

“I will make the announcement in an hour, broadcast over the holonet to all planets. That’s all ladies and gentlemen.” He dismissed them with a nod of his head. “Knights, remain behind.”

Kylo Ren did not take his eyes off Armitage Hux as the disbanded High Command left the meeting room. The lanky man glared daggers at thin air, too afraid to look directly at his Supreme Leader, and immediately wormed his way close to the ears of a small cluster of senior members.

Once the room had been cleared, Kylo Ren looked at his knights.

“From today on, you will serve as my personal guard. No rank is above you. You obey no orders except mine. You will strike down anyone who seeks to betray me and shield only those to whom I have granted my personal protection.”

“Yes, master,” they said in unison.

Hours later, when the speeches had been given, the outline of the new era had been drawn in his image, and his enemies had begun their pointless scheming in the darkest corners of clandestine corridors, Kylo Ren retreated to his chambers inside the former Senate Complex of Hanna.

He shed the weight of his uniform and reached for his lightsaber. Taking a deep breath, he slid his feet into the first stance, activated the saber, and began to move through the forms of attack and defense.

He practiced until his hair escaped its restraint and his body dripped with sweat. Then, he took a cold shower, dried himself off, and slipped into bed. As soon as the sheets touched his skin, he ripped them away and discarded them. When he lay back down, the recycled air rested on his naked skin like the touch of a cool, dry hand.

Kylo Ren fell asleep, and Ben Solo opened his eyes to the sight of the Hanging Gardens outside of Republic City on Hosnian Prime.

The staggered sandstone pyramid reached far into the sky, its hollowed floors overflowing with the tendrils and vines of plants and trees in all shapes and sizes. The scent of the pale-blue blossoms sprouting from the tall, willowy trees beckoned him inside.

It was much quieter in his dream. The hectic buzz of low-flying aircraft had been removed from the sky, and the countless denizens of the city had disappeared from the streets. Ben followed the cemented path to the main entrance, remembering how he had followed his mother here once upon a time.

He walked below the blossoming trees, tucking into the shadows of their willowy branches. Up ahead, he could see his mother walking next to a man, their heads close together as they talked. His hands clenched into fists.

Skywalker.

Ben drew closer, sneaking up to his mother and her twin brother, hidden in the shadows behind the enormous potted trees.

“I worry about him,” his mother said. “The Force grows stronger inside him every day. If something happens-“

“It’s time, Leia.” Skywalker placed his real hand on her elbow, keeping the deadly metal one hidden inside the wide sleeve of his robe. “Let me take him. I can train him, mold him, show him the way of the Jedi before it’s too late.”

“He’s only fifteen,” his mother said, uncharacteristically doleful.

“Yes, but he’s shown signs since he was ten. We’ve already lost precious time that we will never get back.”

“Mama, no.” He heard himself say the words and his feet pulled him out of the safe hiding spot behind the enormous stone planter. “Please, I don’t want to go.”

“Ben!” His mother looked guilty.

Skywalker looked stern and disapproving. “Eavesdropping is a bad habit, kid. You don’t know how-”

“Spare me,” Ben snarled. “I know enough, and I’m not going with you.”

Skywalker didn’t say anything. The look of guilt on his mother’s face intensified as she reached out for him.

“Ben, honey.”

She trailed off and he could see it in her eyes. She had already been convinced by her traitorous twin brother to send him away. She would rip Ben out of school, throw away his future, and make him be some kind of stupid monk in some remote temple somewhere just because he could make things happen with his mind.

He swallowed past the lump in his throat and shook his head fiercely, hands shaking as he clenched them into fists at his sides. He held it together and tried to appeal to her one more time. If she felt as guilty as she looked, maybe all was not lost.

“Mama, the Junior Sabers are in three weeks!”

He could see the tears forming in her eyes and he knew he had lost even before she opened her mouth and said it.

“I’m sorry, Ben.”

“No.” He stumbled, twisted around, and ran.

“Ben!” his mother shouted after him at the same time Skywalker barked out a patronizing, “Kid!”

He shook his head and ran faster. “I don’t want to be a Jedi, and you can’t make me!”

He felt the Force reach out to him, trying to pull him back. Skywalker was trying to control him.

“No!”

Without thought, without any kind of idea what he was doing, he lashed out with his mind, willing the Force to turn back and make them go away.

His mother screamed, and Skywalker shouted something he couldn’t understand. There was a loud crash. Ben didn’t look back.

He ran all the way home and into his room, slammed the door, and locked it. His hands shook as he gathered some clothes and stuffed them into a duffle bag. Once the bag was full, he swung around and snatched the keys to his speeder bike off the dresser. His hand paused.

His father’s golden dice sat next to a small note, written in Han Solo’s nearly illegible scrawl. ‘Good luck, son. Let ‘er rip.’

Ben grabbed the note and the dice, turned around, and stopped short with his hand half raised, reaching to unlock the door.

In front of the door, blocking his escape, stood the figure of a girl dressed in worn linen clothes. She had long brown hair, a kind face he couldn’t quite make out, and her voice felt like a cool hand placed on his feverish forehead.

“Where are you going?”

He heard the front door open and close. Faint voices echoed down the hallway, drawing closer. His mother and her twin brother were coming for him. Admitting defeat to the reality of his past, he dropped his head.

“Nowhere.”

He opened his hand to look at the golden dice and the crumpled note below them. He remembered wishing with every fiber of his being that it were his father who opened the door.

The girl gasped. “I remember these.”

She brushed her fingertips over the dice. He closed his hand reflexively. The moment their skin touched, the Force crackled between them like lingering electricity after a lightning strike.

His head shot up. Their eyes met. The vague comfort of companionship burned up in the acute pain of realization. This wasn’t just a dream. She was here.

“Rey.”


	3. Chapter 3

**III**

Rey woke up with a startled yelp and banged her head on the top of her bunk. She grunted in pain and rolled out onto the floor, rubbing the dull ache on her forehead.

They weren’t just dreams. 

Nausea rolled her stomach as she stumbled across the cold floor toward the galley. 

She was still connected to Kylo Ren. 

When she reached the water dispenser at the galley, she stuck her head under the tap, squeezed her eyes shut, and pulled the lever. As the frigid water splashed down on her, she twitched, and shuddered, and pretended that it was just the tap water dripping from her eyes.

She could literally walk through Kylo Ren’s dreams. 

No, not Kylo. The boy she had seen in those dreams was no more Kylo Ren than Finn was FN-2187.

Somehow, through the Force, Rey was given glimpses into Ben Solo’s past.

Until last night, she had thought they were nothing more than strange, pleasant dreams. She hadn’t even connected the little boy to anything. She really should have when she saw him use the Force. Maybe she had been deliberately blind. 

Deliberate or not, the scales had fallen from her eyes when she had touched a familiar pair of golden dice and looked up into the unmistakable eyes of a fifteen year old Ben Solo gazing at her in pain and desperation.

Rey yanked her head out from under the water, ripped her wet hair back with violent fingers, and stood, dripping, in her galley. 

She needed to find those dice. 

She had no idea why, but it was absolutely vital that she found them, right now. 

She wiped a hand over her face and burst into a fast paced walk, along the outside corridor and down the ramp. 

She remembered seeing them in Kylo’s hand through their Force bond before she had closed the door on him. Before that, they had been a lucky charm dangling from a rarely used lever inside the cockpit of the Falcon. There was no way she would find them on this island. 

Mind racing, Rey jogged along the dirt pathways, nearly running over a group of Caretakers in her haste to get to Luke’s hut.

There was no way. 

She burst into Luke Skywalker’s abandoned home and remorselessly rifled through his meager belongings.

They couldn’t be here. Why would they?

She put aside a stone urn filled with unidentifiable smelly stuff and picked up a small metal box with ornate carvings and a metal latch clasp.

Rey held her breath as she pushed her thumb under the rusty lever and flipped it up. The box opened stiffly. Inside, on dark velvet, sat a yellowed piece of paper and below it, shiny as new, the set of golden dice connected by a thin link chain. 

She laughed to herself as she opened the note. She had never gotten to read it in the dream.

Her brows furrowed. “Let ‘er rip?”

The inimitable roar of the Falcon’s engines vibrated in Rey’s eardrums. 

“What the…” 

She stuffed the note back in the box, snapped it shut, and scrambled for the door. As she looked up into the sky from the stoop of Luke’s doorway, she just caught a glimpse of the Millennium Falcon’s afterburners before it disappeared inside the clouds. 

“No way.” She shook her head, unwilling to believe what her own eyes were telling her. “There is no blasted way!” 

She tucked the little trinket box safely inside her coat and stormed off toward the plateau where she knew damn well her Millennium Falcon would still be parked or there would be hell to pay.

Ten minutes later, she tore back through the small Caretaker settlement, roaring, “Where is my ship?” 

Finn was the only one who didn’t tuck his head in and look away. He got up from his seat near the bonfire and came over. BB-8 trailed behind him, making sad little beeping noises. 

“Don’t be mad,” he said as he handed over her staff and the backpack she had been carrying for the better part of her life. “She said to tell you it was the only way, and that, technically, it’s still her husband’s ship, but she promises to get it back to you in one piece.”

Rey snatched her staff and backpack from him. Her chin trembled with the force of her suppressed rage as her glare roamed over the rest of the crowd, who all pretended to be fascinated by the food inside their bowls. She was not surprised by the absence of Chewbacca. Who else would have piloted her royal pain-ness into certain heroic death? But the big hairy oaf wasn’t the only one missing from their rag tag crew. 

Rey’s eyes narrowed. “Where are Poe and R2?”

Finn shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “He said they needed at least one decent fighter pilot. BB wouldn’t budge, but R2 was ready to go.” 

She nodded. 

Then she turned around and stalked toward the nearest Caretaker.

“What are you doing?” Finn called out after her.

“Getting off this island,” she yelled back. “Going after my ship.” 

She stopped in front of the short, toad-like alien and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I need a spacecraft that can get me off this planet.” 

The creature smiled. 

 

“You have got to be kidding me.” 

Rey stared into the small cove below where an old, rusted X-wing lay dormant under the crushing dark waves. She jerked her head around to glare at the small group of Caretakers who had led her here. Finn towered over them all, his face doubtful as he looked down at the wreck.

“This is the only ship?” Her voice shook. 

The Caretakers nodded, confirming in the babbling noises of their native language.

Rey sucked in a deep breath, nostrils flaring, as she reached out her hand toward the sunken ship. 

“Just like rocks,” she whispered.

The Force flowed through her, connecting her to the churning waves below, the racing clouds above, and every sun beam warming every blade of grass on the island. Life and death, light and darkness, the whole universe and every atom in it felt connected to everyone and through everything. 

Below them, the X-wing shuddered, and groaned, and slowly, ever so slowly rose to the surface. Water sluiced in streams off the rust coated wings and trickled down from the long narrow nose of the fuselage. 

Rey breathed slowly, in and out, as she guided the ship higher and higher, above the craggy rocks, and onto the gentle green slopes. 

It settled onto the grass with a creaking groan and rested quietly for a moment. Then a piece of wing snapped off with a loud crack and dropped to the ground with a heavy thump. 

Rey’s shoulders slumped with a heavy sigh. 

“How am I ever going to get that thing in the air again?” 

Finn stepped away from the group of Caretakers and joined her in front of the damaged ship.

“That actually shouldn’t be too big of a problem,” he said.

She raised her brows and put all the disbelief she felt into a single, pained grimace.

“No, really,” Finn insisted. “Rose is kind of an ace mechanic, so she can probably even come up with a few improvements.”

For the first time since she had watched the Millennium Falcon fly off without her, Rey smiled.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV**

He could feel her down to the marrow inside his bones. It was nothing like sensing his mother’s passive presence or Skywalker’s restless, driven energy. When Rey used the Force, he felt struck like a tuning fork; everything in him vibrated at her frequency. 

‘I will destroy her.’ 

He remembered screaming the lie into Skywalker’s face. The old man had not risen to the bait. Had he known even then? Had the knowledge of their connection scared him enough to finally confront the monster he had created?

Without Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren would not exist. 

Without Rey, Ben Solo would cease to be.

He should want to destroy her, but he could never allow that to happen. Her power was the only one that sang in tune with his own. Harmony. Balance. 

Together, they could rule the universe. Peace and prosperity for a thousand years. He was sure of it, could feel it, down to the marrow inside his bones.

“Sir, General Hux requests to see you.” 

Kylo Ren curled his lips and rubbed his tongue against his palate, trying to remove the sour taste of betrayal and disgust.

“I’m sure he does,” he growled under his breath before he raised his voice to the clear, commanding tone of the Supreme Leader. “Send him in.”

The doors swished open, and the general sauntered through them as if he owned the right to come and go as he pleased. 

“Supreme Leader, I’ve come to-”

“Bring news of the final demise of the Resistance?” Ren interrupted, turning around to glare at Hux. 

“I...” Hux pulled up short, chin aquiver for a moment, before he collected himself. “I’m sure they will be rounded up shortly.” 

“I don’t care for interim reports.” Ren snarled, reinforcing his threat with the shadow of pressure around the base of the other man’s throat. “Come back when you can report their deaths. Until then, don’t waste my valuable time.” 

He used the Force to throw Hux back the way he’d come, satisfied that the automatic doors opened in a timely fashion to assist in his involuntary rapid departure. They swished shut behind Hux, leaving the trembling messenger alone in the room with Supreme Leader Kylo Ren.

“No more spontaneous visitors,” he ordered calmly. 

“Yes, sir.” 

As the messenger fled from his office, he returned to his station at the window looking out over the city of Hanna below. 

If he allowed himself to drift, he could see her reflection in the glass before him. Rey. How would she feel about this city? Would she adore the sea of lights and the great bustling of the diverse residents? Or would she feel overwhelmed by it, longing to return to the solitude of the desert she was used to? 

He couldn’t help but wonder where she was now. Had she retreated to the island Snoke had mentioned while he had probed her mind in the confines of his throne room on the Supremacy?

Ren had been unable to confirm its location before he was forced to kill the traitorous bastard. 

He still didn’t regret it. 

Killing Snoke had been as much about avenging himself as it had been about saving Rey. He knew no pardon for betrayal, and discarding him like a tool after extorting everything from him was the worst kind of betrayal among the many that Kylo Ren had suffered in his life. 

From a certain perspective, Snoke had brought it onto himself. 

Ren remembered the first time he had heard the old man’s voice in his mind, a promise of escape and power whispered in his ear when he had needed it most. 

He shoved the thought away. There was no need to dwell on such things. 

Ren turned on his heel and activated the intercom. 

“Ready my ship. I will depart for Riosa in thirty minutes.”

“Yes, sir.” 

 

The manufacturing planet of Riosa was a shadow of its former self, far removed from the glory of its early days during the construction of Vader’s Death Star. As Kylo Ren’s Upsilon-class shuttle set down on the grey durasteel plates of the landing bay outside Asturia Penitentiary, he wondered what the mines and factories of this planet could still be capable of. 

The question would have to wait. For now, he was coming to see one specific person. 

His Knights followed double file as he strode through the gates into the prison facility. The low level workers and guards cringed and cowered at the sight. Kylo Ren did not need a helmet or a billowing cape to instill fear. The power of the Force surrounded him, reaching outward, always, seeking to connect or destroy. 

The warden personally escorted them to the cell block where the man was kept. 

“You will have to excuse his state,” he simpered. “He’s been on hunger strike for over a year now. We’ve had to force-feed him, but he’s awake, and he should be lucid.” 

Ren told his men to wait outside and entered the prison cell alone. The door closed behind him with a hollow bang and the locks engaged with a clattering sound. He smiled. The warden was naïve if he thought any of it could resist the Force. 

Kylo Ren flicked his gaze over the austere interior of the cell. There was a sanitary area, a small table and bench, anchored to the wall, and, on a long narrow metal slab, sat a man who barely looked alive. 

His short gray hair was disheveled and shot through with mangy clumps of sandy blond. The same scruffy mix grew in irregular patches on the man’s gaunt cheeks. His narrow eyes had sunken deeply into their dark grey sockets and their sharp blue color was dulled by an unhealthy glassy sheen. His body was emaciated to the point that every bone was clearly visible through the brittle pale skin. 

Kylo Ren sneered.

“Disgusting. I expected more from a member of the Galactic Senate.”

The bedraggled figure on the bench chuckled, a rasping, lifeless sound that grated in Ren’s ears. The man spoke without exerting the effort to lift his head.

“The Senate’s been destroyed, haven’t you heard? Hosnian Prime is gone. Obliterated by Snoke and his army of lickspittles.” 

Ren let the insult roll of his back. He did not count himself among the lickspittles. His goal had always been grander than restoring some bygone empire. 

“Snoke is dead,” he said calmly, and then, using the Force to penetrate the prisoner’s mind where no one else could hear, he added, ‘I killed him.’

For the first time, the man moved. His head shot up surprisingly fast and he settled his hollow stare on Kylo Ren. His eyes widened as he looked into the face of someone he had last seen as a teenager many years ago. His lips did not move but Ren could hear the wonder and awe as the name materialized in his thoughts. 

‘Ben Solo?’

Ren braced himself against the wave of hope that emanated off the prisoner like a strong gust of wind. He shook his head.

“I am Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the New Order, and I have come to take you with me.” 

Without waiting for an answer, he turned around and raised his hand. The locks yielded to the Force and disengaged with a scrape of metal. The door opened. The warden’s horrified face greeted him on the other side. 

Ren smirked. “Ransolm Casterfo has been pardoned,” he informed the quivering warden before he turned to his Knights. “Take him. We’re leaving.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An old master makes a surprising appearance and dispenses some much needed wisdom.

**V**

Rey refused to go to sleep. She sat by the fire with Finn and Rose, away from the other members of the Resistance, trying to concentrate, but mostly just battling drowsiness as Rose prattled on about the multitude of necessary repairs and optional improvements she would perform on the X-wing.

If she let herself go to sleep, she might dream. If she dreamed she would inevitably be drawn into Ben Solo’s world. She could not afford that. She couldn’t allow herself to be taken in by the boy when she was doomed to destroy the man. 

She needed to prepare herself, make a plan, and stick to it. Repair the X-wing, find Leia, take back the Falcon, face Kylo Ren, defeat him. In that order.

Her gaze fell onto the broken pieces of Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber in her hands. If she was going to defeat Kylo Ren, she would need a functioning weapon. She doubted Maz Kanata had another lightsaber conveniently waiting in storage.

With a heavy sigh, she walked away from the conversation. Finn and Rose hardly even noticed, too wrapped up in their fantasy of creating a weapon that would make an X-wing capable of destroying a Dreadnought with a single shot. 

Rey found C-3PO near another fire, regaling the Caretakers in their native language with tales of eras gone by. Something about Ewoks and primitive villages hidden among the trees of a forest moon. 

“3PO, I need to talk to you,” she interrupted during a round of hearty laughter. 

“Of course, Rey,” the droid responded immediately. He turned his golden head and focused his motionless round ocular sensors on her. “How can I be of service?”

She showed him the broken pieces of the lightsaber. “I need to fix this.”

“Oh,” he said and hung his head in an imitation of human disappointment. His gears whirred as he reached out for the saber, then dropped his hand. “I’m afraid that is impossible. While it would certainly be easy for a mechanic to reconstruct the basic mechanism of the hilt, there is no way to repair a broken lightsaber crystal.” 

Rey’s heart sank. “Any chance Luke might have kept a spare one somewhere on this island?”

3PO shook his head. “Natural crystals are extremely rare. At any rate, Luke Skywalker used a synthetic crystal that took considerable effort to create. I recall R2-D2 disappeared for days when young Master Skywalker forged it.” 

“He forged it himself? How?” 

“I couldn’t say. I was not there to witness the process.” 

“Of course not.” She gritted her teeth. Then a spark of inspiration struck. “The books. If you had the Jedi texts, would you be able to read them?” 

“Of course, I am equipped with the TranLang III communication module and fluent in over six million forms of communication.”

“Great, I’ll…” She trailed off as realization struck her like a snap from a long blade of grass. 

The books were stowed inside a storage compartment on the Millennium Falcon, somewhere hundreds of parsecs across the galaxy by now.

She growled in frustration and stormed off without a clear direction in mind. 

The next time she looked up from the muddy path beneath her feet, she was standing in front of the burnt remains of the ancient tree that had served as the first Jedi temple.  
The air smelled like charcoal and spice. Above her a million stars sparkled on the dark blanket of night. Rey took a deep, shuddering breath and sank to her knees on the soft, mossy ground.

“Help me,” she whispered, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes as she closed them. “Help me.” 

She reached out to the Force, flung her arms wide in despair. She didn’t care if she pulled the entire island up by the roots, she needed to find an answer. She needed help. She needed someone to guide her through this impossibly overwhelming mess.

“For such small needs a lot of energy you waste.”

The creaking, gravelly voice trailed off into a rusty chuckle. Rey spun to face it, hardly aware of the clumps of dirt, wood, and stone that pattered back to the ground around her.   
At her side stood the ghostly apparition of a tiny, wrinkled creature with enormous pointy ears, a flat nose, and lazy brown eyes that sparkled with perpetual amusement. His small, claw-tipped hands tapped a walking cane barely longer than a screwdriver on the ground as he laughed at his own joke.

“Who are you?” 

Rey felt compelled to reach out toward the blue glowing creature. She promptly got her fingers smacked with the tip of the cane. It stung every bit as much as the time Luke had struck her with a long blade of grass. She retracted her hand, and the creature nodded in satisfaction.

“Master Yoda, they call me.” 

Rey wiped her eyes as hope twitched inside her like a desert creature under the first drop of rain. “A Jedi master?” 

The little creature hummed in agreement.

“Please, help me, Master Yoda.” Rey pulled the broken pieces of Luke’s lightsaber from her backpack and held them out on her palms. “I need to fix this.”

Yoda looked at her hands for a moment, made a disgruntled noise, and swiped his cane through the air. 

Ripped by the Force, the lightsaber pieces flew from her hands and landed in the dirt at the base of the burnt out tree temple.

“Fix it! Restore it! Rubbish!” he groused. “Create your own destiny, you must. Everything you need, you have.” He pointed the tip of his cane at her chest.

“I don’t know how,” she cried desperately.

Master Yoda’s whole face seemed to pucker up in annoyance as he shook his head at her. 

“Feel the Force. Connect with the Force. Channel the Force. Create.” 

“Channel the Force?” She shook her head. “Channel how? I don’t have a crystal.” 

“The heart of the lightsaber, the crystal is. Everything you need.” Yoda huffed through his nose and pointed his cane at her chest again. “Right here, you have.” 

Rey sank back, confused. She still didn’t understand. “In my heart?” 

She brought up her hand and rested it on her chest. Her fingers brushed against the hard edges of the little case she had taken from Luke’s hut. Her eyes widened.

She fumbled with numb fingers to pry the latch open and removed the precious golden lucky charm, holding it out on her palm. 

“Han’s dice?” she said.

Master Yoda nodded. “Feel the Force. Connect. Channel. Create. Then Balance you will find.” 

“Okay,” she said and nodded as she closed her fingers around the dice. “I can do that.” 

“Days, it may take,” Master Yoda cautioned her. “Indispensable meditation and sacrifice are.” 

She was not deterred. “I can do this.” 

Rey looked up in gratitude, but Master Yoda was already gone. 

“Thank you,” she whispered into the starry night.

She returned to the bonfire with renewed vigor. Finn and Rose were still talking about the X-wing.

“How long will it take you?” she asked Rose, interrupting a long, breathless monologue on the merits of laser canons over proton torpedoes. 

“Huh?” Rose looked confused.

“How many days to get the X-wing back in the air?”

Rose bit her lip as she looked thoughtfully between Finn and Rey. She waggled her head. 

“Three, maybe four? It’s really hard to say, until I get in there and-” 

“Four days,” Rey cut her off. “Focus on the basics and get her in the air.” 

Finn got up, standing protectively in front of Rose. “And what are you going to do?”

Rey showed him the dice in her hand. The metal felt warm and vibrant on her palm.

“I’m going to forge a weapon.” She looked at her staff, leaning innocently against the bench where she had left it. “My very own lightsaber.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the feedback and kudos so far. They make me very happy. I know writing a fic with major character death is taking a chance, and I hope you'll stick with me. There will be a happy ending. 
> 
> Let me know what you think.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the wait. Without further ado, here is Chapter 6. 
> 
> This story is still somewhat developing as it goes, so feel free to speculate and give my plot bunny fodder.
> 
> ###### 

**VI**

He almost moaned. When the unexpected squall of Rey using the Force rang through his body in the middle of a meeting with potential candidates for the new council, Kylo Ren was forced to bite a hole into the inside of his cheek to suppress the shameful noise.

He dismissed the flabbergasted aliens with a few harsh parting words and retreated to the privacy of his chambers. 

Braced on the hard edges of the window sill, he closed his eyes and let the sensation of raw, unremitting power hum through his veins and down to the marrow inside his bones, vibrating at her frequency.

It didn’t stop. 

Before, it had lasted for less than a minute, just long enough to remove a pile of rocks from a cave entrance or shift a significantly heavy obstacle from one place to another. 

Now, it spread and intensified from a steady quiver into a relentless throbbing pulse, raising the hair on his body and making him gasp for breath. 

He hadn’t felt this much raw power since he had forged his lightsaber. 

Ren had no idea how to control it and no obvious path to release it. Overwhelmed, he took a deep breath and strove for the necessary calm to meditate. A challenge at the best of times, it proved impossible to find his center until he gave himself over to the maelstrom and let it drag him down into its core. 

At the bottom of the spiraling void, he could see her face. Eyes wide open to the night, fields of stars shone inside their hazel irises. 

He groaned, collapsed, and crashed to his knees. Behind his closed eyelids only she existed. Nothing else. 

“What are you doing?” he growled into the empty space between them. 

Her eyes shifted, locked onto him, and narrowed with a surge of undirected loathing.

“No!” 

Their shared universe imploded, flinging Ren back through the void into his solitary physical body on the cold marble floor of his private chambers. 

The hum of the Force was gone, Rey’s presence cut off from him like a severed limb. How long before he would feel the phantom pain of it?

Ren shook himself, and struggled to rise to his feet. He was exhausted. Whatever Rey had been doing required a massive amount of energy, and she had tapped right into his when he had joined her through the Force. 

He staggered to his bed and fell onto the cool mattress with a groan. As the recycled air from the vents wafted over him, his body felt raw and on edge. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Too far away.

Gritting his teeth against the unwelcome sensation, he closed his eyes, rested his arm across them to block out all light, and tried to reach out to her across the Force.

Nothing. She had completely closed herself off to him.

The monotonous drone of the oxygen scrubbers filled his ears. Below him, the bed was cold. The weight of his boots rested on his feet and pressed the fabric of his uniform slacks against his calves. The heavy armor around his chest rose and fell with every slow, deliberate breath he took. 

Ren focused on every minuscule physical sensation individually and slowly, painstakingly, scrubbed all conscious thought out of his mind. He opened himself up and let everything pour out until he was nothing more than an empty vessel in the darkness.

There she was. Just a trickle of her presence. A careful nudge. As soon as their connection was identifiable, she was gone. Ren smiled. Breathed in, breathed out. Waited. There she was again. And gone. Like a silly game of peek-a-boo, their connection opened, her presence palpable for only a second before she slammed the door on him. Again. And again. And again.

Knock Knock.

Lying alone in his room, one arm flung across his eyes, Kylo Ren laughed like a madman. 

 

The next time he opened his eyes, all he saw was darkness. He swallowed the lump in his throat and curled into himself. The air smelled like trees and animal dung. In the distance, a troop of Woolamanders belted out their vocalizations. Somewhere closer, water trickled onto stone as bugs skittered over and through the ground. His face was wet.  
Ben Solo wiped his cheeks and forced himself to stop crying. He wasn’t a little kid. He was fifteen and the youngest ever participant in the Junior Sabers. Well, not anymore, he wasn’t. His mother had made sure of that. His dad probably still didn’t know.

“So much anger,” a sharp voice said in the darkness. “Such resentment. Useful weapons if you know how to wield them.” 

“Who’s there?” 

Ben whipped around, eyes searching the confines of his prison as if he could will himself to see in the dark.

“Not yet, but perhaps with time you won’t need your eyes to tell you what is in front of you.” 

“Who are you?” Ben’s heart pounded in his chest. His palms were clammy as he curled them into fists around the thin blanket that covered him. “How did you get in here?”

“Foolish boy,” said the voice. “Has your master taught you nothing?”

“I have no master.” 

He didn’t care what Luke Skywalker called himself. Ben Solo bowed to no one. 

The voice laughed. “Not yet.” 

“Leave me alone!”

“If that is what you wish,” the voice taunted. “If you don’t care to taste the power that will grant you the freedom to do as you please.” 

“Wait.” Ben stretched his hand toward the unseen. “Can you get me out of here?”

“Your weakness is the only thing keeping you here. I can make you strong.” 

Ben considered it.

“Don’t do this, Ben.” Another whisper floated through the dark. “Please, don’t go this way.” 

A breeze brushed across his cheek that smelled like hot sand and dry air, like the first stage of the Junior Sabers.

Ben dropped his hand back to the cold ground and clenched his fists. If this was what it took to get back to the races and leave all this Jedi mumbo-jumbo behind him, then he knew what his answer was going to be.

“Do it.” 

A cold, slithering feeling crawled under his skin, burrowed into his chest, and wrapped around his heart as the sharp voice chuckled in the darkness. 

“Moofmilker!”

The familiar expletive was so sudden and the emotion behind it was so strong that it jarred Ren into lucidity.

Still inside the dream, he recognized the memory, and the pitch blackness that had blinded him dissolved into the gray vision of night time, allowing him to see the austere interior of his solitary hut near the Jedi Temple on Yavin 4 where his mother had banished him to be taught in the Jedi religion by Luke Skywalker.

He also knew the identity of the second voice with absolute certainty. 

“Rey.” 

She was here, in his dream, cursing the previous Supreme Leader with one of his father’s favorite insults.

Ren looked around, trying to find her in the dark surroundings. Where would Rey have chosen to be if she had been there with him that night? 

A hand on his shoulder nearly made him jump. 

“That’s how he got you?” 

He whipped around and looked into her eyes. They shone with their own light, pinning him down. Rey had been right beside him all along. 

“That’s how it started,” he admitted. “He offered me control when everyone else was trying to take it away.” 

“He lied to you,” she spat.

“I didn’t know that then.” 

They sat in silence, sharing space on the thin, hard bedroll on the ground where Ben had slept during his time with Skywalker and that bunch of so called Padawans. 

Her gaze hardened, but her hand never left his shoulder.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of Rey's choices in this chapter are questionable, but wherever there is light, there is shadow.
> 
> Enjoy, and let me know what you think.
> 
> ###### 

**VII**

Rey woke up with a nasty ache all over her body. It felt like she had spent the night on cold, hard ground instead of the overstuffed cot in the hut she now shared with Finn and Rose. She missed her pod on the Falcon.

Son of a Bantha, it was no use. She could pretend she didn’t remember, but every damn second of that last dream had been etched into her memory. Snoke, that vile, scum sucking, slave trading piece of Sarlacc excrement had not died soon enough.

Rey could still feel the potent mix of anger, fear, and despair pouring off of Ben Solo in great, roiling waves. And Snoke had abused that distress to insinuate himself in the boy’s mind like some sort of Force brain worm. 

If he hadn’t been dead already, she could have killed him through the sheer Force of her anger. 

She took a deep breath and pulled back. No. She was not going there. 

But where the hell had Ben’s parents been? For that matter, where had Luke been? Had he honestly thought that sticking a kid like Ben in a hut somewhere in the middle of nowhere would do anything but piss him off?

Rey shook her head and grunted in annoyance.

“You okay?” 

Finn’s concerned voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

“What?”

“You’ve been growling at your mug for the past ten minutes. I think the milk is sufficiently scared of you now, you can drink it.” 

Instead, she pushed her mug aside and cradled her head in her hands. 

“I need to do something I don’t want to do, but if I don’t do it, I can’t get what I need.” 

Finn blinked. “I’m sorry, I don’t think that was vague enough. Wanna try again?” 

She scowled. “No, because if I tell you, you’re going to tell me not to do it, and that won’t help.” 

“Ah.” He looked up over her shoulder at someone behind her and a smile pushed away the confused expression on his face. “Hey, Rose.”

“Hey,” she smiled. “I’m getting ready to head out to the X-wing. Are you coming?” 

“Absolutely,” he said as he got up from his seat. “Sorry I couldn’t help you, Rey.” 

“It’s okay. I’ll figure it out.” 

There was nothing to figure out. Every time she opened her mind to meditate or even just to sleep, her bond with Kylo Ren flared up like an old scar in bad weather. But, if she wanted to forge Han’s dice into a crystal, she had to meditate. If she didn’t meditate, no lightsaber for her. 

She had tried until exhaustion the previous night to meditate over the dice while keeping herself closed off from Ren, but it had proven impossible. 

Three days. Rose would have the X-wing ready for her in three days. Then, Rey would have to go after Leia Organa and the Falcon. 

Rey guzzled down her mug of blue-green Thala-siren milk and left the hut. The cold wind ripped at her robes as she hiked back to the burnt out Jedi temple. She could spend the next few days here in solitude until her task was done. 

Except it felt wrong. Before she even sat down, the sight of the broken lightsaber in front of the hollowed husk made her recoil. 

She turned around and walked away. 

Her feet carried her to the edge of the cliff above the vine covered entrance to the mirror cave. For a moment, she entertained the idea of plunging into the icy water, crawling onto the dark rocks and forging her crystal in the company of a thousand reflections. 

Repulsed, she turned around and walked away. 

If she had a choice, she knew exactly where she wanted to do this. She could envision herself in the pilot seat of the Millennium Falcon, her legs crossed under her as she balanced the dice between her hands, gaze turned outward to the stars as her mind turned inward to focus the Force and channel it into the most powerful crystal anyone had ever made.

But the Falcon was gone. 

Still, the thought wouldn’t leave her alone. No place on this island was right. It felt compromised. Contaminated. 

With a snarl of frustration, Rey stomped her way back down the slopes to the Caretaker village. She searched the faces gathered around the central bonfire until her gaze came to rest on the pinched features of one particular person.

Rey waited until the commander stepped away from the group alone and followed at a discreet distance. When they reached the outhouses at the edge of the village, she confronted Commander D’Acy.

“Where did Leia go?” 

The commander turned around and faced her with a blank expression.

“That information is classified,” she said calmly.

“She took my ship. I have a right to know.” 

“I’m afraid you don’t.” She sighed, and her tone became milder, more sympathetic. “General Organa will bring back your ship once she has finished her mission.” 

Something inside Rey shifted and coiled uncomfortably. 

“Not good enough,” she said, fists clenched tightly at her sides. “Where did Leia take my ship?”

“I told you, that information is class-”

Rey’s hand flew up as her mind dove toward the commander’s and pried behind the terror-widened eyes to uproot the information buried beneath layers of duty and loyalty.

The name came to her first, followed by the face of a female alien with silky golden fur and four long, skinny limbs. Then she saw the image of a planet in the Mid Rim of the galaxy.

“That’s madness. The Order will kill her before she gets there.” 

Rey retreated from the struggling mind of Commander D’Acy but not before she used the Force to erase the memory of what she’d done. 

“You will forget we ever had this conversation. You were alone when you reached the outhouses. You will turn around and go about your business none the wiser.” 

“I will forget we ever had this conversation,” Commander D’Acy parroted back in the hollow tone of a person under the influence of the Force. “I was alone when I reached the outhouses, and I will turn around and go about my business none the wiser.” 

As soon as Commander D’Acy turned her back, Rey beat a hasty retreat into the shadows behind a pile of rocks. 

Now that she knew where Leia was headed, all she had to do was speed up the repairs on the X-wing so she could get to Leia before the Order wiped her out and destroyed the Falcon.

The lightsaber crystal could wait. She still had Han’s NN-14 blaster tucked away in her backpack, after all.


	8. Chapter 8

**VIII**

Kylo Ren was in a foul mood as he made his way down the long corridors to the visitor quarters of the Senate Complex.

He had spent most of the night fighting the lure of sleep. Rey had not left him until he had forced himself to wake up. Her presence would not have been a problem if she hadn’t insisted on trying to talk. No, not just talk. She had tried to convince his former self to turn away from the dark side. 

It would have been funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. Ben Solo had been turned to the dark side a long time ago. The last vestiges of him outside these dreams had been destroyed with the deliberate murder of Han Solo in the bowels of Starkiller Base. 

Gritting his teeth against the wayward emotion that accompanied the thought, Ren slipped off his glove and dragged his fingernails along the wall until they cracked and broke. 

He stuck his throbbing hand back into the glove and continued on his way.

When he had reached the door he was looking for, guarded by two stormtroopers, he nodded and passed through without bothering to knock. 

The room was not opulent, but sufficiently large and comfortably furnished to welcome visiting emissaries from any planet. Currently, it had been sparsely decorated to cater to the pragmatic tastes of people from Riosa.

Ransolm Casterfo had cleaned himself up, shaved off the scraggy beard, and dressed in the robes that the Order had provided. It was impossible to tell whether he had eaten any of the food they had served him. Recuperating from a year’s worth of starvation would take more than a few square meals.

However, his eyes were sharper than they had been, and the look in them was calculating as he directed his gaze at Ren.

Kylo Ren felt a smidgen of satisfaction. “I see you have decided to recover your dignity.”

“I’ve decided to find out what you want with me.” 

Ren smiled. “Before the war, you were Leia Organa’s colleague, isn’t that right?”

Casterfo snorted. “That’s putting a lot of work on a single word, Ben.”

He lashed out with the Force before he even thought about it, placing the audacious senator in a tight stranglehold. After he watched the man struggle, scrabbling at his throat to no avail, he loosened his grip just enough to allow air to pass through the constricted windpipe.

“My name is Kylo Ren. You will address me as such or use my proper title when speaking to me.” He deposited the gasping former senator on a nearby chair and released him from the Force hold. “At this moment, General Organa is no doubt plotting a resurgence of the Resistance. For that she will need to make contact with old acquaintances and like-minded elements. You will reach out to her, claiming to offer your support for her cause, and then you will deliver her to me.” 

“Why would she believe anything I say? She’s going to wonder why I haven’t been executed for treason, to say nothing of being released from prison.” 

Kylo Ren smiled. “You are a consummate politician, aren’t you? I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

Casterfo gaped at him. The man’s fear and despair was palpable in the air like the stench of rotten meat. 

“She’s your mother,” he protested weakly.

“She’s an enemy of the new era.” 

“And if I refuse?” 

Kylo Ren barked out a laugh. He was surprised at the unrelenting audacity of the frail old man in front of him. How could someone who was barely alive twenty-four hours ago have so much fight in him?

“If you think your little hunger strike in Asturia Penitentiary was unpleasant, it will be nothing in comparison to what I put you through before I make you comply anyway.” 

He rested the weight of the Force on the old man’s head, letting him feel just how easily he could penetrate his mind and tear apart anything he found there.

“You leave tomorrow morning. One of my Knights will accompany you and ensure you don’t step out of line.” 

His orders delivered, Ren walked out and left Ransolm Casterfo alone with his thoughts. 

On his way back to his chambers, he ran into General Hux, almost in the literal sense when he didn’t notice the man until he was right on top of him. 

“General,” he uttered with a sneer of contempt.

“Supreme Leader,” Hux’s tone showed not an ounce of reverence. 

Ren stared the slighter man down until he felt the first tendrils of anxiety snake through the air toward him. 

“What are you doing here, Hux?” 

The general raised his cold blue eyes far enough to almost meet Ren’s gaze as he locked his hands behind his back.

“Just because we have achieved our objective,” he said with a sneer, “that doesn’t mean I can rest on my laurels. With or without High Command, the military needs to be prepared. The more we sweat in times of peace, the less we bleed in war.” 

Kylo Ren raised his brows, mulling over the legitimacy of the explanation. It was sensible to assume Hux’s first priority was the might of the military and his own unquestioned position within it. The cur was sniping at heels, trying to prove he was still useful.

“I have been thinking,” Ren drawled, “the new council could benefit from a strategic military advisor. Considering your unwavering commitment to the cause, I can see you slide into that particular position quite easily.” 

The position in question would also be under the firm grip and unrelenting surveillance of the Supreme Leader at all times. After all, the safest place for a war dog was at his master’s feet.

Ren trailed his gaze over the general’s uniform and lingered on the rank insignia. “Are you interested?”

When he looked back up, he was met with the general’s hungry stare. He might as well have offered bloody meat to a starving beast.

“Yes, Supreme Leader.” 

“Good.” Ren nodded. “I will inform you when your presence is required. Until then, carry on with business as usual.” His gaze trailed over the puffed out chest and hungry eyes one more time. “Dismissed.” 

Hux nodded stiffly and marched off down the corridor.

Kylo Ren looked after him, wondering how long he would be able to keep the cur under control before he inevitably had to take him out and end his miserable existence. 

Shaking off the thought, Ren turned his back and moved on, aiming to get in enough hours of rigorous physical exercise to drain the tension that was currently clawing at every muscle in his body.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey follows Leia, Chewie, and Poe to the planet Lonera. Things go very badly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that there will be CHARACTER DEATH in this chapter and also in following chapters. I am going to KILL CHARACTERS you care about. They will STAY DEAD. If you read past this point, you acknowledge that this is going to happen and that any hurt or anger it causes you was inflicted by you choosing to read it.
> 
> All right, now that I've got that off my chest ... Enjoy the story, stick with me for the ride, and please consider leaving feedback below, because that sorta thing makes my day.
> 
> Toodles.
> 
> ###### 

**IX**

Between Rose’s skills, Finn’s determination, and Rey’s manic energy, they had the X-wing ready for space a day ahead of schedule. By morning, there was nothing left to do except lift BB-8 into the droid socket and take off.

“Remember,” said Rose, “the Port 2 4L4 thruster is finicky, so don’t push it too hard. And don’t forget to check your heat levels every once in a while. And keep an eye on the air pressure gauge. And-”

“Okay, Rose,” Rey said, suppressing a snicker, “you’re just rambling now. BB-8 is going to be right there. We’ll be fine.” 

“Right.” Rose nodded, but her gaze moved sharply to BB-8. “You take care of her, you hear me, roller-ball? Stay on top of it, and don’t let her blow up.” 

Then she bit her lip and glanced over at Finn. “Finn, I forgot to bring the Porg jerky. Can you get it real quick?” 

He looked at them funny for a moment, but then he opened his mouth and raised his brows as if he’d figured it all out. “Got it. Be right back.”

As soon as he disappeared over the top of the hill, Rose gripped Rey’s wrist and pulled her closer. Rey’s brows furrowed in confusion. She had no idea what would make Rose want to talk to her alone. It wasn’t like either of them had any secrets from Finn.

“I did what we talked about,” Rose said with a haunted look in her eyes. 

Rey’s breath caught in her throat. When their joking about enabling the X-wing to destroy a Dreadnought had turned serious, both Rose and Finn had been quick to veer away from it. The only feasible option was to turn the entire X-wing into a fusion bomb, guaranteeing death not only for the enemy but for the pilot as well. 

“But it’s a last resort, got it? You only use this if there is absolutely no other way. I wired it to the proton torpedo launchers. They were empty, anyway.” 

Rey nodded. She wasn’t sure she trusted her voice right now. Luckily, Finn was already jogging back up the hill with a large pack of jerky in his hand.

“Found it.” He handed the pack to Rey with a smile. “Don’t eat all of it at once.” Then he turned serious. “How are you going to find them?” 

Rey shrugged. “I have an idea where to start looking.” 

She had kept her interaction with Commander D’Acy a secret. Finn and Rose didn’t need to be burdened with the knowledge of the scary things she was capable of. 

They didn’t press her for more information, so she hugged them both fiercely and climbed into the cockpit of Luke’s old X-wing. The seat was tight and there was barely any legroom. She missed the roomy pilot chair of the Falcon.

As Rey went through the start up checks and procedures, her fingers brushed right over it. A strip of sticky tape covered the button for the proton torpedoes; written on it in Rose’s pretty, curly script were the words “Big Bang - Don’t Touch”. 

Rey smiled. 

“Ready BB?” 

The little droid chirped in agreement and raised his blow torch tool in a thumbs up. 

Rey took a deep breath, expelled it in one big puff, and started the engines. 

As expected, the 4L4 fusial thrust engine mounted to the lower port strike foil backfired and sputtered before it roared to life, making the whole craft wag like a skittermouse tail. It wasn’t the most elegant lift off Rey had ever executed, but it got the old rust bucket in the air.

She breached the atmosphere, plotted a course for Lonera, and kicked the X-wing into hyperdrive. 

The planet of Lonera was located on the eastern edge of the galaxy’s Mid Rim, a polished marble of green, gold, and blue in the habitable zone between two suns. 

Rey breathed a sigh of relief when she dropped out of hyperspace and wasn’t immediately surrounded by a fleet of Star Destroyers. In fact, there was a suspicious lack of any First Order presence in orbit around the planet.

She proceeded with caution. 

As soon as she breached the atmosphere, the P2 thruster started acting up again and her heat gauge alert bleated all the way down to the public landing pad with BB-8s frantic bleeps and bloops for backdrop as the little droid used every tool in his arsenal to keep the X-wing from crashing.

She parked in the designated area, unhappy with the fact that it was smack dab in the middle of a nearly empty public lot. There was no hangar or even just a shuttle port to shield the snubship from view. Her only hope was that the massive amount of replacement parts and welding scars would mask the Rebel origins of this particular X-wing. 

Rey scanned the lot, craning her neck for a glimpse of the familiar curve of the Falcon’s expansive rump. No such luck. 

With a heavy sigh, she leaned against the X-wing and waited for BB to finish the repairs before she lowered him to the ground.

“Come on, let’s go find the general.” 

It was surprisingly easy to find out where she needed to go. The name Varish Vicly held a lot of sway in the opulent city of Gran Loreno. People spoke in hushed and reverent tones about the former senator and pointed Rey toward the most lavish resort located in the central district.

She tried not to shrink away from the dismayed stares and whispered comments that followed her on her way downtown. On the glittering sidewalks, surrounded by silky-furred, lithe-limbed creatures who reeked of wealth and decadence, Rey stuck out like a jammed trash compactor on a luxury cruise starliner.

 

She found them at the gold encrusted hotel bar. Chewie and Poe were making a racket, flirting with the bartender. Leia was talking to an older man with gray-blond hair that Rey didn’t recognize. 

Before she could join them, a threatening glint of pure white caught her attention. A squad of Stromtroopers shouldered their way through the crowd. 

“Leia, run!” 

Rey dropped to her knees, taking cover behind an enormous hoop skirt. The wearer of the skirt didn’t even notice, too busy having a dramatic fit over the invasion of the stormtroopers. 

Rey only caught a glimpse of Leia’s fluttering robes as the general fled, running faster than her advanced age should allow. Chewbacca was right at her heels. Blaster bolts zoomed after them. In pursuit, the stormtroopers ruthlessly shoved people out of the way and fired above their screaming heads.

Four of the ten troopers remained behind. One of them put cuffs on the gray-blond gentleman while the other three were struggling to restrain Poe. 

Rey only had a second to decide. 

She went after Leia. 

Following the trail of chaos, she could see the stormtroopers up ahead, chasing Leia down the street toward the outskirts of the city. Toward the public landing pad. 

“BB,” she panted, “Get to Leia, tell her-”

Rey looked down for a split second. BB-8 wasn’t with her.

“Kriff!” 

She pushed her legs harder than ever before in her life. She needed to reach Leia. She needed to tell her about the X-wing. If ever there was a time for the Force to let her communicate, it was now. 

Rey sucked in a breath through her burning lungs, closed her eyes just long enough to feel the Force, and flung herself toward the feeling of warmth and light that was Leia’s essence.

‘The X-wing, Leia. Get to the X-wing!’ 

A great howling scream echoed off the glittering building walls around her. Chewie was in agony. 

The stormtroopers didn’t stop. Rey almost stumbled over the fallen Wookiee in the spotless gutter. 

Chewie growled something in Shyriiwook that was impolite to repeat in the company of space pirates.

“No,” she said, shaking her head as she sank to her knees and tore a large chunk out of her tunic to press it to the oozing wound in his chest. “No, no, no. You hear me? No.” 

She fought back her tears and pulled the heavy mass of fur to his shaking legs. Chewie screamed and growled all the way.

“The Falcon,” she said quickly. “We need to get to the Falcon.” The sound of a 4L4 thruster backfiring pierced the night like a gunshot. “Now.” 

 

They had hidden the Millennium Falcon in a junkyard, of all places, tucked between the rusting remains of old garbage barges. 

Rey gently dropped Chewie onto the seats in the main lounge, ignoring the panicky bleeps of R2-D2 as she scrambled into the cockpit. 

Seconds later, they were in the air, gunning after Leia. Rey prayed to the Force that the X-wing would hold it together through the atmosphere. The general was on her own without an astromech. 

They had barely breached into space when Rey was confronted with her worst nightmare. 

A First Order Dreadnought hung heavy in orbit, tractor beam engaged, pulling Leia’s X-wing toward its shuttle bay. 

Leia’s voice crackled over the intercom.

“Rey, dear, I’m looking at my photon torpedo launchers, and there’s sticky tape over the button. What does it mean?”

Rey’s heart stopped. “Exactly what it says on the tape, Leia.” Her voice shook. “Don’t do it. I’ll come for you. I promise, just hang in there, okay?” 

“Hm.” Underneath Leia’s calm voice, every warning alert on the X-wing was bleeping manically. “Do me a favor, tell Commander D’Acy I’m sorry. It’s up to her now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Be good, kid.” 

There was a click and then static. Rey didn’t give up. She changed channels and kept trying to call out to Leia as the X-wing was pulled inexorably into the shuttle bay of the Dreadnought. 

Desperate, Rey reached out into the Force, trying to make a connection any way she could. There was a trembling moment of pure silence as the whole universe rushed through her, and then it was there. 

She felt his presence a second before she felt hers. Her eyes widened. Rey was Kylo was Ben was Leia and looked down at the console in front of her. 

The button with the sticky tape. Big Bang – Don’t Touch. The barest hint of pressure from the pad of her thumb against the rough texture of the tape. 

The stars exploded.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, this chapter didn't get cut short. Yes, this is all of it. Yes, intentionally. That's why I'm posting two chapters today.
> 
> Enjoy and don't forget to leave some feedback if you do.
> 
> ###### 

****

X

****

**  
**

Ben Solo screamed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair Warning: Another beloved character dies in this chapter.

**XI**

Rey sat, shaking, in the pilot chair of the Millennium Falcon, struggling to breathe through the crushing weight on her chest.

Outside the cockpit window, the sparkling remnants of the explosion settled into stardust in the emptiness of space.

The same emptiness carved out room inside her until she felt like nothing but a hollow shell. The Force was frozen.

R2-D2s frantic bleeping sounded muffled as if he was communicating from under a blanket.

Rey’s body moved on its own volition, her mind trapped inside a vacuum as she stepped back into the main lounge.

Chewbacca was slumped over behind the hologram board, dark red blood staining the dirty gray seats. His chest wasn’t moving.

“He’s dead, R2,” she croaked. “They’re all dead.”

Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie. They were all gone. No more legendary heroes to save the galaxy. No more hope.

Rey sat down on the floor and cried.

R2-D2 rolled up next to her and expressed his sympathy in quiet binary. When she lifted her head, his holoprojector whirred to life.

The hologram of a young Leia in a flowing white dress spread her hands in desperate supplication.

“You’re my only hope.”

The record skipped.

“You’re my only hope.”

It skipped again.

“You’re my only hope.”

Rey shook her head and wiped her wrist under her nose.

“You’re my only hope.”

She banged the top of R2’s head.

“You’re my only hope.”

“I get it!” she shouted through her tears as she picked herself up off the floor.

“I get it,” she said again, calmer, as she patted R2’s head. “Let’s go save our friends.”

R2 rolled after her, the record still skipping.

“You’re my only hope.”

“Shut that thing off!”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another short chapter. Not to worry, the next one's coming soon. 
> 
> If you're enjoying the story, consider leaving a couple words of feedback. Thanks everyone, and on with the show
> 
> ###### 

**XII**

Kylo Ren stood in the epicenter of destruction, surrounded by the broken remnants of his private chambers. He pulled himself together and strode slowly, deliberately across the cracked marble floor and past the stormtroopers stationed outside his entrance.

The dark, heavy rhythm of fury and determination pulsed through his veins as he marched down the corridor and burst into the office of General Armitage Hux. 

“Report!” 

Hux nearly fell out of his chair, but he quickly straightened himself out and stood at attention. He arched an eyebrow.

“An interim report, sir?”

Kylo Ren flung his arm out. Hux went flying against the nearest wall and stuck there, suspended by the Force that pinned him.

“What happened?”

“With the help of our informant, we were able to apprehend a well-known Rebel fighter pilot at the Royal Resort in Gran Loreno on Lonera. In his company was an astromech with information on the exact location of the remaining Resistance. We will have them rounded up within a day.”

“What of General Organa?” He already knew the answer. 

“General Leia Organa is dead,” Hux spat. “She was able to commandeer an X-wing and detonated an unknown fusion device in the shuttle bay of our Siege Dreadnought. 215,000 of our soldiers were killed.” 

Kylo Ren took a deep breath, turned his back, and released the general from his Force hold. Hux crashed to the ground with a yelp.  
Without looking back, Ren barked out his next order. 

“I want all of them brought here, alive. We’ll make an example out of them. Trial and execution for treason against the new order.”

He left Hux’s office with a head full of steam and a heart full of ice.


	13. Chapter 13

****

**XIII**

  
Rey turned the Falcon around and landed it back in the junkyard. She covered Chewie with a blanket and stroked the soft fur on his head before she walked out with R2-D2 at her heels.

This time, she was prepared for the lavish environment. That didn’t make her feel any less like a fraud when she walked down the street, wearing one of Leia’s elegant robes. 

The patrons inside the resort were still recovering from the shock of witnessing a stormtrooper arrest. Rey found the Loneran she was looking for at a table in a quiet corner.

Two of her four extended limbs were draped elegantly over the back of the suede booth while the other two were hidden under a crimson gown that complimented her silky golden fur. 

“Varish Vicly?” Rey asked.

The Loneran narrowed her eyes as she nodded. “I recognize that robe, child. How did you come by it?” 

Rey smoothed her hand over the soft fabric, fighting the bitter tears that stung her eyes. 

“I borrowed it from the owner,” she said quietly. “She won’t wear it again.” 

Bright shock froze the expressive features for a moment. Then the Loneran moved one of her long limbs to beckon Rey closer. 

“Come here, child.” 

Rey sat down next to the graceful woman and let herself be petted like a little girl. She wanted nothing more than to break down against the bony, silky shoulder and cry for days, but she didn’t have time. She needed to save Poe and find out what had happened to BB-8.

“Leia’s …” She couldn’t say it. “Gone.” She sniffled. “And they took my friend. The stormtroopers arrested him and some other guy that I think was going to help us. I need to find them.” 

“Hm,” said Varish, “be careful. Not every gem is as precious as it first appears.” 

Rey pulled back to look at her. “What do you mean?” 

“The man you saw with Leia? His name is Ransolm Casterfo. He was a Senator of the Republic, the same as Leia and myself, but he was not on our side.” 

“You saw them? And you didn’t do anything,” she accused.

Varish Vicly looked truly contrite. “I couldn’t interfere without risking my own arrest. People depend on me here, especially now.” 

Rey set her chin in a hard line. “So you’re not going to help me.” 

Varish shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, “but there is someone who can. He’s a freedom fighter, sharp shooter, and smart enough to slice through the toughest security in the galaxy. He’s helped Leia before. His name is-”

“Look,” Rey interrupted angrily. “I don’t have time to chase down another legend. Just tell me where they took Poe.” 

Varish Vicly tilted her beautiful head in sympathy. “There’s a jail on the outskirts of town just behind the junkyard.” 

“Thank you.”

As Rey left the glitzy resort, she could feel the Loneran’s piercing eyes on her all the way to the exit. 

 

Breaking into jail was easier than she had thought. With the help of R2’s dataprobe they were able to steal the building blueprints from the public data library, and the same tool came in handy again to break the code on the entrance to the maintenance tunnels, allowing them to sneak in undetected.

Once they exited a service door onto the empty main corridor of the cell block, Rey strode across the floor as if she had every right to be there, R2-D2 right behind her, until she reached Poe’s cell.

He looked miserable, crouched on the hard cot with his knees pulled up to his chest.

Rey opened her mouth for a sarcastic quip but all that came out was, “Poe.”

His head whipped up and he looked at her with an expression that was one part hope and three parts disbelief.

“Rey?” 

“We’re gonna get you out,” she whispered.

R2 rolled up to the cell door and inserted his probe into the locking mechanism.

“Have you seen BB-8?”

It was a long shot, but Rey couldn’t imagine the little droid had run off on his own. She was willing to bet that when she had followed Leia, BB had stuck with Poe.

Poe’s face confirmed her theory. He swallowed heavily and rubbed a hand through his dark, curly hair.

“They took him. I don’t know where. He’s probably torn into spare parts by now.” 

Rey swallowed. Another friend lost to the cause that looked increasingly futile. When she looked up, Poe cracked a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. 

“Nice dress,” he quipped. “Does Leia know you took it?” 

“She…” The words got stuck in her throat.

The cell door opened with a heavy clunk. At the same time, all hell broke loose. Claxons went off, blaring above a mechanical voice announcing, “Prisoner Escape.” 

Eyes wide, they stared at each other for a second of helpless panic before they jolted into motion.

“There’s a service tunnel,” Rey shouted over her shoulder as they bolted down the corridor. 

When they reached it, the door was locked tight with a thick metal bar across the middle. 

“What now?” Poe looked at Rey.

Rey looked at R2-D2 who was bleeping frantically.

The sound of heavy boots thundered toward them from the other end of the corridor. A squad of stormtroopers came around the corner and opened fire. 

“I don’t know,” she yelled over the piercing blasts as she ducked behind a data access box, pulled out her blaster, and returned fire.

The heavy bolt on the service door behind them slid aside and the door opened.

“Need a hand?” 

A heavy, gloved hand reached out and dragged Rey into the maintenance tunnel by her robes. Poe and R2 tumbled after her and banged the door shut behind them.

“Hello, old friend,” said the man as he typed something on a datapad while R2-D2 went hysterical in binary. 

The door locked. He slipped his datapad into a pocket in his cape.

“Who are you?” Rey gaped.

“I’m a legend you don’t need to chase down,” he rumbled in a deep voice and flashed a cheeky grin that stretched his well-groomed chevron mustache. “Lando Calrissian. At your service, princess.” 

“I’m not-”

A blaster bolt impacted on the other side of the door. Poe ducked just below it and pushed R2 forward into the tunnel.

“We should get out of here before they break through.”

Somehow they managed to get back to the Millennium Falcon without getting caught. Lando gaped when he saw her.

“What the hell happened to my ship?” 

“It’s my ship!” Rey roared as she sprinted up the access ramp and into the cockpit. 

Outside, two more squads of stormtroopers caught up with them and opened fire. 

“I thought you looked familiar,” Lando quipped as he dropped into the co-pilot chair. “Another fruit of the old smuggler tree?”

Rey ignored the comment as she got them in the air so fast it broke the sound barrier.

“If you’re going to sit there,” she said, eyes burning at the sight of Chewie’s seat, “get us ready to go into hyperspace.” She threw a look over her shoulder at Poe clinging to the doorway. He looked paler than before. “Buckle up.” 

Lando raised his brows, but his fingers danced over the controls and started the calculations. 

“Destination?” he asked in a clipped tone.

She had no idea and no intention to divulge the coordinates for Ahch-To. 

“Anywhere but here.”


	14. Chapter 14

**XIV**

While the construction crew was working on his quarters, Kylo Ren retreated to a place he never thought he would see again.

As he walked along the old familiar paths that cut through the hills on the outskirts of Hanna, his feet carried him to the childhood home he had only known for the first few years of his life before the family had permanently relocated to Hosnian Prime. 

The exterior was unchanged by the decades, gleaming white among the surrounding grassy slopes. He was surprised to find it had been long abandoned. 

A casual wave of his hand unlocked and opened the front door. The air smelled stale and moldy as he stepped through the foyer into the large living room. Heavy drop cloths covered what little furniture remained.

His gaze trailed down the hall toward a set of bi-fold doors. A lifetime ago, his mother’s office had lurked behind those doors, forever off limits to a kid who couldn’t ‘sit still and be good’ long enough no matter how hard he tried.

The ice in his chest burned, making it hard to breathe. His knees buckled and he dropped through the heavy cloth into an old chair in the corner. Grief flowed like boiling lava up his throat. He choked and heaved and bent under a weight he didn’t know how to push off.

Lost in the darkness, his traitorous heart reached for the light.

“Ben?” 

She stood there like she belonged, wearing his mother’s favorite dress – too big on her small frame. 

“I … I didn’t …” A million words and screams combusted in his throat. 

“I know,” she said. “I could feel it.” 

Had she really? When the stars had exploded and filled the vacuum of the entire universe with the blinding light of pain and regret, had she felt it, too? Could she feel it now? 

“Where are you?” 

Too far away.

“You know where I am.” 

Right here.

She sat down in the middle of air and held out her hand. His father’s dice rested on her palm, gleaming golden in an unseen light. He reached out and brushed his fingers over them.

“The Falcon.” 

The moment their skin touched, he could see it: the worn gray pelt of the pilot seat backrest behind her; the durasteel levers and glowing buttons of the command console; the multi-paneled cockpit window; and the bulkhead door leading to the corridor into the rest of the ship. 

She didn’t pull her hand away. “Sit with me.” 

He moved his chair to line up with his vision of the Falcon’s co-pilot seat and turned to face her. 

His gaze trailed over the console. As a child, all he had ever wanted was to fly this ship and see if he could beat his dad’s record on the Kessel run. He had never had the chance to find out.

“You still could,” she offered, “if you join me.” 

His eyes met hers. “Liar.” 

There was a disturbance, and her head whipped around to face someone he couldn’t see at the bulkhead door. 

“Now’s not a good time,” she said. “I’ll find you later.” Her face crumpled as she scowled at whoever was still there. “I said I’ll find you later. Please.” 

“You don’t have to beg,” he growled. “Use the Force.”

She shook her head, but whoever was intruding on them was clearly testing her patience. 

“You don’t have to hurt them,” he cajoled. “Just push them out and lock the door. It’s easy.”

He held his hand out and pushed through the Force, testing his ability to influence reality on her end without having a firm grasp on it.

Rey gasped and yanked his arm down. 

“I’m sorry!” she yelled at a corridor that looked empty to him.

She hit the switch and locked the bulkhead door before she whirled back on him with fire in her eyes and a finger pointed right at his nose.

“Don’t you ever do that again!” 

She looked so much like his mother that tears welled up behind his eyes and muscle memory made his mouth form the words before he had even thought them.

“I’m sorry.” 

She seized the inadvertent raw emotion like a Tooke-trap plant, holding it between them.

“Then help me.” 

“How?” he asked skeptically.

She smiled, sank back into the pilot seat, and held out his father’s dice again. 

“Lend me your strength to forge these into crystals.” 

“That’s impossible.”

“I have it on good authority that it’s not.” 

He raised his eyebrows and reached for the identity of the authority. She showed him willingly. The Force ghost of a diminutive green creature with a powerful Force signature had appeared to her at the ruins of a burnt Jedi temple. 

“Even so,” he said, “why would I help you forge a weapon to kill me?”

“Because it gives you time to convince me not to.” 

The offer was tempting. He wanted her to join him. He had wanted it since the day he had felt her Force match his own. Even after she had rejected him on Snoke’s ship, he still wanted her.

“What if the attempt kills both of us?” 

She shrugged. “Balance?”

He paused, remembering the overwhelming sensation of the Force surging through him, every fiber of his being vibrating at her frequency down to the marrow in his bones. This must have been what she had attempted then. 

“It will take time,” he cautioned, “and a tremendous amount of energy.” 

“Yeah,” she said with a cringe. “I kind of got that.”

“We won’t be able to stop until it’s done.” 

“Yeah, I kind of got that, too.” 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” He swallowed. “With me?”

They were enemies bound to face each other in battle. What they did here and now could change that trajectory or accelerate it to terminal velocity. 

Her eyes met his, a fierce glow lighting the warm hazel irises.

“Yes.” 

He held out his right hand next to hers. 

Without having to be asked, she unhooked one of the dice from their connecting chain and placed it on his palm. She returned her right hand to its previous position, and he covered it with his left at the same time she rested her left hand gently on his right palm.

Her steady, piercing gaze never wavered from his face. It touched a part of him that he believed had died and disappeared with the demise of Han Solo. It hurt.

“Close your eyes,” he grumbled.

A frisson of annoyance arced through their bond.

“I know how to meditate, Bantha brain.” 

“We’re off to a great-” 

His quip ended with a gasp as her connection with the Force drove into him like a Star Cruiser collision in hyperspace.

The sensation of raw, unremitting power hummed through his veins, raising every hair on his body as it intensified to a deep throbbing pulse. 

The Force flowed through him and into her, connecting them until there was no distance between them, each particle fused to its match. Their energy radiated outward, surrounding and penetrating all living things, binding darkness and light, life and death, every star in the galaxy and beyond into the entire universe until all of it was connected to everyone and through everything. 

“Do you feel that?” 

They nodded in agreement. 

Between their hands, light and darkness melded and swirled into galaxies as the golden dice at their center began to glow.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next two chapters are going to take us down the rabbit hole for a bit. I'm going with the assumption that 'time' is relative, especially when you're stuck outside it for a bit. Enjoy.

**XV**

Time and space stretched around them, infinity reaching in all directions. The Force allowed them to glimpse everything that had ever been and everything that ever could be; every moment of eternity lay open at the tips of their fingers.

All they had to do was touch. 

At first there was only the scent of humidity, tropical trees, and guano. Then they felt the wicked blades of sharp edged leaves. When they opened their eyes, Ben Solo leaped through the air between towering, vine covered trees. 

A troop of Woolamanders, small simians with rotund bellies, long sinewy arms, and short bent legs, jumped after him through the canopy, belting out earsplitting screams. 

Hundreds of feet below, a cluster of youths the same age as Ben stumbled across the mossy ground, struggling to keep up with the chase. 

It was exhilarating. Vaulting off the rough bark, the Force pushed and pulled from all directions until a smooth, knotted vine slapped into his palms and propelled his weight in a wide arc toward the next impact with rough bark. 

Ben whooped louder than all the Woolamanders. 

Until he came to a forceful stop on a wide branch in front of the immovable obstacle of Luke Skywalker. 

The Woolamanders dispersed like a swarm of Nightcrawlers in direct sunlight.

Fear and resentment simmered just below the surface at the sight of the dour bearded face and drab brown robes.

“What do you think you’re doing, Ben?”

The calm words cut like the slow drag of a blade across defenseless skin. Ben didn’t flinch. 

“I’m doing what you asked.” 

“I asked the group to navigate their way back to the temple guided by the Force.” 

Anger, fueled by impatience and incited by a sibilant whisper in Ben’s mind, bubbled to the surface and manifested in a tremulous shout.

“It’s not my fault they can’t feel it!” 

“Your privilege is not their shortcoming.” 

Ben’s head snapped back with the impact of a blow that was never delivered. His shoulders set in an obstinate hunch under the disapproving glare of the man he saw as his warden. His response was bitter and cold like Frinka venom. 

“I never chose this privilege.” 

They could feel it flow through them and out into the universe. Pain, betrayal, resentment, and spite swirled into a dark shroud that would eventually consume everything in his path.

Woven into the fabric of time and space, sympathy laced its gossamer thread through the pain as they retreated unnoticed. 

Light swirled into darkness and back into bright light. 

Then there was heat. Unrelenting, scorching heat from an unforgiving sun beat through cloudless skies onto barren white sand. 

Scattered across a vast flat stretch of baked ground, the settlement of Niima Outpost was little more than a ramshackle pavilion built from scrap material surrounded by a haphazard collection of tents and shacks. A large area ringed by a durasteel wire fence sprawled at its rear, allowing access through a single enormous gate.

On the other side of the gate, a small shuttle landed in the empty lot. The loading hatch lowered with a groan of rusted metal and dropped onto the packed sand, kicking up dust. Pressurized air vented in bursts of white clouds as three figures descended the ramp. 

Two scavengers dressed in threadbare linen, their faces obscured by dusty head scarves and thick goggles, guided Rey between them, each holding one of her tiny hands.

“We’ve come to trade.” 

A few paces away, at a safe distance from the shuttle, stood a pink Crolute male with his hands splayed on his fat belly, sausage fingers tapping out a lazy rhythm. With his flat nose and wide, shapeless face, Unkar Plutt looked rather like a blobfish. 

“What have you got?” 

The pair pushed Rey forward. She stumbled and nearly fell, but she quickly righted herself up and glared at the junk boss with a stubborn scowl.

Unkar Plutt placed one of his sausage fingers under her chin and lifted her soft face. 

Rey couldn’t be more than five years old, but her eyes betrayed her. She knew more than she should. 

Unkar Plutt removed his hand with a grunt. “80 credits.”

The scavengers looked at each other. One shook their head and the other made an impatient gesture. The first turned to Unkar.

“She’s a quick learner, and she can fit in the smallest spaces, squeeze her hands where no one else can reach. Two hundred credits.” 

Unkar laughed. “And how long before she grows up and becomes more trouble than she’s worth? A hundred credits.” 

“You can always breed her. A hundred eighty.” 

“Again, more trouble than it’s worth. A hundred fifty and that’s my final offer.” 

“Deal.” 

The shuttle took off without Rey. Tears streamed down her face as she screamed after it into the clear blue sky, her arm trapped inside the fat sausage fingers of Unkar Plutt. 

They could feel it rise like a tidal wave. Confusion grew into fear and crested in betrayal until the wave unexpectedly broke. Hope washed toward them, soaking through her very essence and saturating everything around her.

"They'll come back for me." 

Pulled back into the void, they moved through light and darkness like the sway of a pendulum. 

Heat and humidity stuck to them like wet fabric. In the distance, the Jedi temple gleamed in the burnt orange sunset. Below them sprawled a quiet clearing carved out among behemoth jungle trees. 

Ben Solo, grown into a young man, sat on the ground in a circle of his peers. The six gaped in awe as Ben balanced a number of rocks in the air, making each one spin around its own axis as they rotated in the orbit of the big rock in the center like a small solar system. 

Among the group was a female Omwati whose wide eyes were as blue as the oceans on Chandrila. She gazed at Ben in plain adoration, her heart shaped beak parted in astonishment. When Ben smiled at her, her pale blue cheeks became suffused with a pretty shade of lavender. 

One of the young men, a blond human, spoke up. “What else can you do?” 

Ben’s face flushed with a sense of pride. “I can do anything. If I want to, I can look into people's minds, make them do things.” 

“No way.” 

“Show me.” The Omwati’s voice rang clear like a wind chime. 

The solar system dropped to the mossy ground. The flush on Ben’s face turned several hues darker. He gulped. 

“Are you sure?”

“See,” jeered the blond, “he’s stalling. I told you there’s no way.” 

The Omwati glared at him before her wide blue eyes turned back on Ben. “Do it.” 

Ben passed his hand in front of her face, but she didn’t react in any way. She just continued to stare at him with her adoring gaze.

“You will get up and do a handstand.” 

As the Omwati moved to comply with Ben’s instructions, one of the other young men piped up. He was a lanky, mournful looking Phindian with dark green skin and a very pronounced droopy nose. 

“Oh, come on, that’s mean. You know she’s not-” 

The comment died as the Omwati executed a perfect handstand in front of them. 

Ben smiled and waved his hand in front of her eyes again. “You will shift your weight to one hand, raise the other off the ground, and remain perfectly balanced.” 

She followed his instructions without missing a beat. 

“Whoa.” The Phindian smiled, an odd expression on his droopy mouth. “Will she remember this?”

“Yes,” Ben said calmly, “unless I tell her not to.”

The blond human leered. “Make her show us her boobs.” 

Ben’s hand lashed out and gripped the air in front of him. The blond started to choke.

“You will never make a comment like that again. You will never think about her like that again, and you will apologize.” 

While the blond gasped for breath, scrabbling at his throat, the Omwati dropped back onto her knees. Her cheeks were the color of wild grapes under her fierce glare. 

“I’m sorry,” the blond rasped, eyes flicking between her and Ben.

She clacked her beak closed and nodded once. 

A quiet rustle went through the bushes beyond the tree line. 

Unnoticed by the circle, another padawan had witnessed the secret meeting. The diminutive figure made a furtive escape and slunk back to the temple. 

The pendulum swayed. 

Under the blinding glare of the sun, the desert stretched for miles in every direction. A pinprick of gray winked at the top of a dune in the distance. Coming closer, the tiny speck resolved into Rey, no more than thirteen years old, with sunburned skin and limbs so bony they should break under the weight of the sled she dragged behind her. 

She trudged through unmarked sand until the half-buried shape of a fallen AT-AT appeared at the bottom of a dune. In the distance, the hulking skeletons of broken Star Destroyers reached into the sky. 

Under the shelter of the AT-AT’s right hind leg sat the eviscerated shell of a rusted red speeder sans repulsorlift engines. 

Rey dragged her scavenged parts into the shade by the speeder. Squatting in front of the meager pile, she picked up a rusted thruster with blistered fingers. 

Hope and happiness radiated from her, putting the heat of the desert to shame. It reflected on her face, hazel eyes glittering, as she scrubbed the thruster until not a speck of sand or rust remained on its surface.

Rey dragged and shoved the hefty durasteel turbine until it lined up with the locking frame at the speeder’s aft. It took enormous effort, but, once the part was in place, her tiny fingers made quick work of securing the connections between half a dozen wires on each end.

She hit the switch. 

Nothing happened. 

Disappointment carved another notch inside her chest, but she raised herself off the ground, slung the chafing ropes of the salvage sled over her shoulder and walked off in the direction of Niima Outpost.

She dropped her things off at the concession stand and received two portions for the lot. Her eyes burned with determination as she raised her chin to face Unkar Plutt behind the counter.

“How much for a set of repulsorlift engines?”

The junk boss laughed, his fat rolls shaking with the gesture. “More than your life is worth.” 

“How much?” she asked again.

His beady black eyes narrowed at her. “Two hundred portions.”

Rey hung her head and turned her back on the concession stand. 

A tall, gray-skinned alien man pursued the young girl with her empty sled. His face was flat, and hard, dominated by a thick bony nose. As he tailed Rey into an alley between ramshackle huts, two slender, tentacle like proboscises snaked out of invisible pouches on his cheeks and retracted just as quickly. He was Anzat, a species known to prey on the life essence of others.

Shame crawled between them like icy fissures. A desperate pull toward the void threatened to tear them apart, but determination like durasteel binders held them together and kept them in this time and place.

The man placed an enormous hand on Rey’s shoulder. “I can get you those engines.” 

She swallowed hard and looked up at the stranger with the quick mistrust of a child sold into slavery not long after she had learned to walk. 

“What do you want in exchange?” 

He bared his teeth in a hungry smile. 

Fear and determination warred inside Rey, her body and mind tensed against the possibilities of her future. 

Unable to do anything but witness the past unfold, humiliation clashed with impotent rage and swirled into a mess of conflicting impulses. 

Rey and the man disappeared inside one of the huts. The door closed with a resounding bang. They did not venture beyond it until the man reappeared and walked to the concession stand alone. 

Inside the decrepit shed, Rey lay curled up on a pile of scrap fabric and dirt, one arm wrapped around her stomach, her other hand pressed to her face, pinching her nose.

Her mind was hollow, devoid of anything but the dullest sensation of loss and regret.

The impotent rage thickened into a roiling gloom and drew them like a shroud over the space around Rey. 

When the Anzat stepped across the threshold again, the darkness rolled toward him in billowing clouds of wrath. 

The Anzat paused. Blank gray eyes stared through time and space and froze before the molten heart at the center of the deadly smoke.

“A word of caution, little girl,” he said quietly. “Your future is consumed by darkness.” Hands raised in supplication, he took a deliberate step back. “Your engines will be waiting for you at Unkar’s stand,” he added before he backed out of the door and disappeared. 

Rey pulled herself to her feet and dragged her scrap sled back to Unkar Plutt’s concession stand.

“My engines,” she demanded of the Crolute.

“Well, well, well,” said Unkar Plutt and stroked his wobbly chin. “I tell you what, I give you a choice, you can either have those engines or …” He paused with a nasty smile. “You can have the 200 portions instead.” 

200 portions would feed her for a year. Her chin trembled. 

Anger and doubt warred on her face, but below it a deep, unrelenting thread of determination and hope.

Rey set her chin, took a deep breath, and glared up at Unkar Plutt.

“My engines.” 

The pendulum swayed.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second chapter in "head space and time". Enjoy. Feedback is always appreciated.

**XVI**

There was silence. Star studded darkness and liquid-heavy air enclosed the Jedi complex like a thick blanket, muffing the sounds of the rainforest.

The quiet night exploded into noise and motion as one of the huts surrounding the temple collapsed, followed by a commotion of people bursting into the courtyard and colliding with each other in their haste to get to the scene. 

Ben stood trembling outside the ruins. His face was ghostly pale until a lick of flame tinged it a violent orange. The fire spread quickly among the debris, dense smoke pluming gray into the night. The tail of Luke Skywalker’s robes was just visible among the burning rubble. 

“Master Luke!” screamed one voice. 

Another pointed an accusing finger at Ben. “You did this!”

"Murderer!” barked a third. 

“He tried to kill me.” Ben’s voice was lost in the turmoil.

“You’ll pay for this!” 

“Leave him alone!” chimed the Omwati. 

Ben turned on his heel and ran. 

He didn’t get very far. 

“Get him!”

The sound of lightsabers pierced the night. Gashes of brilliant green cut through the darkness. 

Ben instinctively threw himself to the side and barely escaped a broad swipe aimed to cleave him in half. His own saber flared to life in time to deflect the next attack. 

The students turned on each other with the intent to kill. Evenly matched in numbers and skill, they met as enemies on the battle field.

At the center of the storm, Ben Solo fought for his life, eyes glittering with shock and betrayal.

In the end, only seven of them remained standing. 

Chests heaving, blood of every color dripping from fresh wounds, the survivors stood silent in the aftermath of the carnage, lost. 

When Ben turned and walked away, the others followed. 

Snoke’s presence poisoned the air in a tangible miasma of vindictive triumph.

“Yes, come to me, boy. Take your rightful place as a true apprentice of the dark side.” 

A white hot blaze of protective instinct seared through them and surged toward the group. Thwarted by the laws of time, it settled, unnoticed, helpless to do anything but surround the fragile souls on their way into the darkness. 

The pendulum swayed. 

In the belly of a fallen Star Destroyer, fifteen year old Rey hung suspended above a vertiginous drop, her legs clinging to the broken shell of a command console as her hands dug through its ravaged guts for any remaining precious resources. 

The stench of dried machine fluids and decay thickened the air, forcing Rey to take shallow breaths. Her rope harness constricted her stomach, keeping the nausea at bay as she painstakingly untangled wires and broke her fingernails prying at old welding seams to get at the circuitry underneath. 

With a strangled grunt, she wrenched something from deep within the console. Her joyous whoop spiraled along the walls into the abyss. 

Between her bloody fingers glinted a large, undamaged datachip. The information stored on it could be worth more than her body weight in rations.

She carefully packed the chip inside her satchel and clambered up the treacherous terrain back to the hull breach that had served as her entrance. 

Rey’s fingers had barely curled over the edge of the hole when rough hands yanked her out by her tunic and slammed her against the hull. 

Breathless, head spinning, she barely saw the swing coming at her. She rolled to the side, feeling the durasteel vibrate under her as the blunt weapon missed by an inch and impacted the worn hull of the ship where her head had just been. 

She scrambled onto her hands and knees, but a hard rod crashed across the middle of her back, knocked the wind out of her, and pushed her flat on her face. Someone tore at her satchel.

“No!”

She twisted around and kicked her attacker, throwing her hands up as the heavy staff barreled toward her again. 

Rey acted on instinct. She grabbed the hard shaft with both hands and wrenched it past her. The assailant flew with the momentum, hurtled over his own staff and crashed into the unforgiving metal. 

She was on her feet, staff in both hands. Her attacker whirled around, and came at her again, clawed fingers reaching out from a dirty hooded cloak. Rey swung the staff hard. The figure stumbled back. She struck again, harder, and kept striking.

She saw the hull breach. She didn’t stop. 

There was no scream. Just a quick scrape of metal as her attacker’s boots slipped over the edge and the flutter of heavy fabric as the cloaked figure plummeted into the abyss.

Rey slung the staff over her shoulder and walked away, sickness churning in her guts. 

The pendulum swayed. 

Surrounded by the mechanical hum of engines and the toneless whisper of filtered air, a group of knights shrouded in black armor faced Supreme Leader Snoke in his throne room. 

"Your leader, the heir to the Skywalker legacy, who will bring glory to the galaxy like his grandfather before him! Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren."

Six of the seven dropped to one knee and pressed their fist to their chest, bowing their heads in deference to the knight standing stiffly at their center.

"You will bring me Luke Skywalker." 

Behind the thick visor of his helmet, Ben Solo closed his eyes and struggled to contain the stutter of fear in his breathing. 

The pendulum swayed.

Under the spotty shade of the awning, Rey glared up at Unkar Plutt who stood protected behind wire mesh inside the steel cage of his concession stand. 

"Two years ago, you said two hundred portions is more than my life is worth. Does that still stand?" 

The Crolute laughed. "That was before," he said with a meaningful leer. "It's worth even less now."

"How much?" 

The junk boss frowned. "Why the sudden curiosity?" 

"Answer me. How much is it worth now?" 

He made a disgruntled noise and smacked his lips. "A hundred, maybe." 

Rey nodded and pulled something from the satchel at her side.

"Then how about this?"

Unkar Plutt's beady eyes opened wide as he stared at the imperial datachip between her fingers. 

Rey smiled, the thrill of triumph racing through her veins.

"My freedom in exchange for this. Nothing more, nothing less." 

The pendulum swayed.

Rain beat down like nails on the Knights of Ren as they prowled the charred remains of the Jedi temple for Luke Skywalker in vain. 

Anger and fear drummed in each heartbeat as the man behind the mask struggled to embrace his destiny. The whispers of the dark side felt no less a stranger in his chest than the siren song of the light. 

The pendulum swayed.

Air like packed ice cleared the star speckled sky and puffed out in clouds with every labored breath as Rey learned to wield her staff.

An invisible strength seemed to guide her hand, flowing through her arms and legs, allowing her to move faster and strike harder. Joy burst like water jelly on her tongue. 

The pendulum swayed.

Across fire and blaster shots, Kylo Ren stared at FN-2187. He recognized the traitorous pull to the light, acknowledged it, and walked away. 

Pulled by the same light, Finn and Rey collided and held each other to a greater cause. 

Pushed by the darkness, Kylo crossed their path and struck, each blow driving them on toward destiny.

Destiny demanded tribute on a bridge inside the heart of a dying weapon. 

As one they watched each other bend and twist under the weight of a thousand decisions, each leading to the next, in a chain of events as irrevocable as water and sand wearing at stone driven by a greater Force.

Through the past and present they looked into the future. Infinite combinations of salvation and damnation hinged on innumerable diverging choices. 

In a chaotic battle, Rey used the Force to save Rose and Finn died.

Rey did nothing to save Rose and Finn lived. 

A giant sea creature tore into the Millennium Falcon and drowned it in stormy seas.

The sea creature missed and the Falcon sped away across the churning waves.

Rey came to Kylo on Chandrila. 

Kylo came to Rey on Ahch-To.

They fought.

They kissed. 

They died. 

They ruled. 

Years spun into centuries and out into millennia. History turned into legend and the galaxy moved on. War and peace, empires and republics, wealth and knowledge discovered and discarded.

Outside their own galaxy, another and another. A million other galaxies, growing and breathing, colliding and collapsing. In each one, life and death, creation and destruction in a never ending cycle beyond any measurable scale. Infinite. Constant. The Force.

As the universe unfolded around them and between the palms of their hands, they found what had been missing.

Clarity. Harmony. Balance.

 

An explosion rocked through the present, shattered their peaceful unity, and tore them apart. 

Alone. Surrounded by darkness, he came to his senses once again abandoned and devoid of light or warmth.

The sensation of loss was so strong he could taste it, gagging, on the back of his tongue, felt it like a lack of blood in his veins, heard it in the absolute, deafening silence surrounding him. 

He coughed and gasped, disoriented, shaking, trying to restore the connection that had been so cruelly severed. They weren't meant to part. They had been perfect. 

"Rey." His voice without hers sounded dissonant in his ears.

He struggled to his feet and stumbled toward the door. His legs could barely support him. Physical motion felt clumsy and jarring. Such an inefficient way to cross distance. Nothing compared to their existence as one with the Force. 

Their connection was severed, but she was alive. He knew it like he knew his heartbeat was wrong, out of sync. He needed to get to her. They needed to get back to each other. 

Maker have mercy on whomever had severed their connection if he found them before he found Rey.


	17. Chapter 17

****

XVII

****

**  
**

A high-pitched whine rang in her ears and gray smoke blurred her vision as she pulled herself up off the floor beside the pilot chair. 

She was alone inside the cockpit. It didn’t feel right. 

Another explosion rocked the Falcon. 

The bulkhead door slid open. Lando Calrissian stumbled inside, his lips moving frantically, but she couldn’t hear him through the ringing in her ears.

He broke past her into the pilot seat and took over the controls. 

“What’s happening?” Her voice felt strange in her throat. 

Her hearing came back with a nasty jolt. Warning claxons were going off everywhere inside the cockpit. 

Poe stormed in and dropped past her into the co-pilot chair. 

“First Order,” he growled.

Rey pulled herself up onto shaking legs, holding on to the backrest in front of her to stay upright and looked out the cockpit windows. 

Below them shone the blue marble of Ahch-To, threatened by the oppressive shadow of a Star Destroyer. TIE fighters zipped by at incredible speed and executed hairpin turns, circling back for another round of blaster fire. 

The Falcon lurched and broke away from the fight. 

Calrissian was mumbling into his mustache too rapidly to make out individual words before he snarled, “I’m getting us out of here.”

“How did we get here in the first place?” Rey screamed as she clawed her fingers into the backrests. 

“You said anywhere but here, princess,” he yelled over his shoulder as he dove between two approaching TIE fighters. “I just reversed the hyperspace coordinates to get us back to your point of origin.” His eyes fixed on Poe. “If you’re not busy, would you mind manning the guns?” 

“You know, I’m actually an ace pil—“ 

Another laser bolt glanced off the aft shields as they rolled through it. 

“Never mind, I got it.” 

Poe scrambled out of his seat and down the corridor toward the gun well. 

Rey dropped into Chewie’s chair and switched off the most annoying klaxons that didn’t need immediate attention.

“Our people are down there.” She switched off the navcomputer and closed the flapping panel beside her with a bang of her fist. “We have to get them.” 

“What?” 

Calrissian muttered another string of unintelligible curses, the only audible words “Rebel Princesses”, and executed a dive so sharp it caused the two TIE fighters that had flanked the Falcon to crash into each other and explode.

“Still not a princess,” Rey snapped as she fastened her seatbelt and tried her best to keep up.

“Could’ve fooled me.” 

They breached the atmosphere with the remaining TIE fighters in hot pursuit and hurtled toward sea level at breakneck speed. 

Without any obstacles to weave through, the smaller fighters had an easy time staying on their tail. Poe was firing the laser canon for all he was worth, but there were still half a dozen coming after them.

Rey bit her lip and made a snap decision. 

“Get close to the water and get ready to dodge.” 

“Dodge what?” Calrissian asked, but he steered the Falcon down until they were just far enough above the surface that he could still execute a bank without drowning the engines.

“That!” 

The gigantic maw of a sea-creature burst from the churning ocean, water dripping off razor sharp teeth as it dove after the Falcon, missed, and snatched the hexagonal wing of a pursuing TIE fighter instead. 

Two more TIE fighters broke off to escape the resulting tsunami as the enormous body crashed back into the water. 

One was too slow, spun out of control, and hurtled into the waves, shattering into a million pieces.

Calrissian whooped at the top of his lungs and executed a barrel roll just for the hell of it.

When another fighter went down, felled by Poe’s gunmanship, the remaining three pulled off and retreated. 

Rey immediately switched the controls and took over piloting. 

“Hey!” Calrissian protested.

“My ship,” she snarled. “And I know where to go to get our people.” 

They landed on the outskirts of a sustained firefight. The stormtroopers’ aim was worse than usual, zooming past the ears of the rebels who had barricaded themselves inside the small Caretaker huts. 

A single assault shuttle rested on the gentle slope in the middle of the island, spilling more stormtroopers to replace their fallen comrades.

Rey’s fingers flew over the console, readying the Ground Buzzer blaster cannon. Lando’s age-worn hand grabbed hers before she could fire. 

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Blasting that damn shuttle to hell.” 

“And killing any of your friends that might already be on it.”

She pressed her lips together in frustration, knowing he was right. 

“Fine.” 

She jumped out of her chair, pulled her NN-14 blaster from its holster, and stormed through the corridor toward the ventral boarding ramp. 

As the bulkhead door slid open in front of her, she took a deep breath and reached out to the Force. Through the fire and smoke, far across the galaxy, she saw his dark eyes stare back at her. The sensation of absolute devotion and power drove into her and spread through her veins like a stream of liquid lightning.

Rey held the connection for one trembling moment before she shut it down. 

She descended the ramp as an instrument of the Force and cut her way through the enemy without passion or compassion. 

Blaster bolts stopped in mid-air, yielding to her hand, and changed course to hit their mark inside a stormtrooper’s chest. Her own blaster’s aim was true and found a way to fell the enemy. Her will tore through anyone who came too close and sent them to their knees, clutching their heads. 

She was aware of everything and everyone around her, saw her friends across the distance as clearly as if they were standing right in front of her. 

Too far away and far too aware of the consequences if she chose to interfere, Rey watched Rose Tico sacrifice herself to save Finn. 

The blaster fired. The bolt hit. The explosion threw them clear as debris rained down around their ears. 

Rey forced another stormtrooper to his knees on her way to them as Finn cradled Rose in his arms. She watched her bloody lips move, knew what Rose was saying because she had said it a thousand different ways in a million different tragedies on their way to salvation. 

“I get it now, what you tried to do on Crait.” 

“No, you,” Finn croaked, spilling broken words from a broken heart. “You were right. You were right.”

Rose died with Finn’s lips on her forehead and his tears on her cheeks.

The First Order shuttle retreated, leaving the ground littered with their fallen soldiers. 

When Rey touched Finn’s shoulder, he looked up at her with wet eyes burning from pain and despair.

“Do something,” he demanded. “Save her.” 

Rey felt tears slide down her face. “I can’t.”

They gathered the bodies of the stormtroopers in a pile. The funeral pyre lit up the night while large plumes of smoke blotted out the stars.

They buried Rose on the gentlest slope of the island where she would always be able to see the sun rise and feel the rain wash over the swaying blades of grass. 

As Rey stood next to Finn, looking out over the ocean toward the pastel colored horizon and the two rising suns, she decided how the story would end. 

“I’m going to confront him.” 

“Good.” Finn’s tone was too cold for his heart.

“It’s not going to go the way you think,” she said softly, recalling the words Luke Skywalker had spoken the last time Rey had left this island to meet Kylo Ren.

“As long as it ends with him dead, I don’t care.” 

“Yes, you do,” she said with conviction. She wrapped an arm around his hunched shoulders and pressed a kiss to his furrowed brow. “And I will always love you for that.”


	18. Chapter 18

****

XVIII

****

**  
**

He had barely passed through the entrance into the Senate Complex when he felt her. The moment she reached out to the Force, he flung himself toward her, offering everything of himself, straining to recapture their connection. 

Inexplicably, she denied him, allowing no more than a fleeting glance across the vast expanse of space between them. 

It was not enough, could never be enough, but it sufficed to give him an idea what was happening. 

For the second time, he was forced to storm into General Hux’s office and demand clarification on matters that should have been reported to him before decisive action was taken. 

“As per your orders, Supreme Leader,” Hux said with a measured amount of irritation, “a Star Destroyer was dispatched to retrieve the remaining rebels from a small planet on the Outer Rim. As it turns out, the coordinates are an exact match to the suspected location of Luke Skywalker and the first Jedi temple. An assault shuttle is on the ground now, engaging the rebels. So far, there has been no confirmation of the presence of Luke Skywalker—” 

“You won’t find him.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “Skywalker is dead. Has been since the battle of Crait.”

Hux reacted to the news with an affronted stare, but he quickly regained his composure with a curt nod.

“Be that as it may,” he drawled, “the remaining rebels will be swiftly collected, and I shall be glad to brief you in full once I have received the final rep—”

The Holonet screen on the general’s desk flared to life, transmitting the distressed visage of a captain of the First Order. 

“General,” he said in a rush, “we have apprehended most of the remaining rebels but we are facing heavy resistance. I repeat, we are facing heavy resistance on the ground. The rebels have been joined by an unidentified fighter.” 

There was a crackle of static as the Holonet switched signals and showed the image of a woman in long, elegant robes, shooting stormtroopers and forcing them to their knees with a simple gesture of one hand. 

“She is mowing us down. If we don’t retreat now – General, please advise.”

Irritation and disbelief wafted in great fuming clouds from Hux’s stiff body as the general glared at the projection, nostrils flared and eyes glittering below trembling brows. 

“Retreat and return to Hanna Base immediately.” 

“Yes, General.” The captain accepted the order with a sigh of relief.

As he stood witness to the general’s barely contained apoplectic fit over the havoc his other half was wreaking, he could not help but smile with pride despite the fact that he should be angry.

She would come to him. As certain as he could feel she was alive, he knew that she would come to him.

He left the General’s office and took the long way to his private chambers by way of the newly decorated throne room. 

In two days, there would be a grand gathering. He would take his official place as the new emperor and grant the first public audience to the people of the galaxy, represented by the leaders chosen among those who had applied for a position on his advisory council. 

It would be the perfect opportunity to put the traitors on trial and prove, once and for all, that resistance was pointless and destructive. Only the new order could finally bring the peace and prosperity for which the galaxy had been yearning all these decades.

At least, that had been the plan. 

Now, things might be different. 

Would she dare to confront him in the middle of his fortress, surrounded by an assembly of the galaxy's elite? Of course she would. Nothing could stand between them. If he allowed himself to remember, he could see it now. How it would all play out.

“Where have you been?”

The voice was heavily distorted by a speech modulator, giving it an unpleasant dissonant timbre, but the concern was no less audible.

He turned to look at the knight who had spoken. 

“Confronting old ghosts,” he said vaguely. "Forging new connections." 

The knight reacted with a slow incline of the head and an attempt to reach out a hand toward him, aborted when he took a deliberate step back.

“And were you successful?” 

He cocked his head and contemplated the question. Had they finally overcome the obstacles that divided them? Had they achieved what they had set out to do?

“I don’t know.” 

The knight exhaled a heavily modulated sigh. "Everything is in place for the ceremony. We're expecting envoys from all remaining Core Worlds, several of the Mid Rim planets, and our allies in the Outer Rim. They will arrive over the next twelve hours."

He nodded, relieved to hear there had been no hold-outs among the worlds. Everyone seemed to have accepted the new order for the time being. 

"Ensure that Casterfo is noticed among the crowd during the speech. I want them to see that those who have come to embrace the new order will be treated well."

The knight stiffened. "Will he be given a place on the council?" 

"Of course not. Once he's served his purpose here, he will be sent back into exile on Riosa." 

The knight nodded. “What of the remaining rebels?”

He shrugged. “We shall see.” 

In the quiet moment that followed, he turned to face the throne at the head of the room. It stood symbol to all Kylo Ren had achieved, draped in the colors Kylo Ren had chosen for this new dynasty. Black and white. Light and Darkness in equal measure, forever entangled. 

It looked utterly ridiculous. 

Mundane symbolism was appallingly inadequate to express what he had experienced. Flags and banners could never hope to capture the true meaning of it. 

Balance. Harmony. Peace.

"If I tore it all down..." he mused, trying to entertain the outcome but unable to finish the thought. 

There was a version of this story in which everything ended before the sun ever rose on the new dynasty.

"Master?" 

He smiled and shook his head. 

She would come for him, and he would be ready. Together, they would reforge their connection and discover how to share what they had found in each other with the rest of the galaxy. 

"Prepare yourself," he said as he left the knight behind in the throne room. "Things will change drastically."


	19. Chapter 19

**XIX**

When Rey stepped back inside the Falcon, Poe and Calrissian were in the middle of a quiet discussion that stopped the moment they noticed her presence.

She ignored them and headed straight for the cockpit. Her gaze scanned the dirty floor. When nothing caught her eye, she dropped to all fours and checked under the seats and in the dusty corners that hadn't been cleaned since before she was born. 

"Are you looking for these?" 

Poe's voice was laced with a timbre she couldn't quite place. 

She crawled out from under the console and got up. When she turned around, he held out his hand, showing her the two radiant crystals on his palm. 

They were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. 

"Yes." 

She reached for them, but he closed his fist and snatched it away, giving her a stern look. 

"What's your plan?" 

Rey pulled up short. She had only known Poe for a little while, but he hadn't struck her as the type who needed turn by turn directions. 

"My plan," she said, stressing the word, "is to confront Kylo Ren and put an end to this ongoing tragic saga once and for all."

"Yeah, see, that's not much of a plan. It's more like a basic concept or a vague idea." He shook his head and scowled. "Listen, what I'm trying to say is ... I've been where you are. When you want to land that crushing blow so badly you can taste it." 

His gaze dropped and she could feel his guilt and remorse radiate from him, glowing hot like lava.

"I got reckless," he snarled. "I didn't listen to anyone who tried to guide me and because of that, because of me, a lot of good people died." 

"So you're trying to stop me from making the same mistake, is that it?" 

Poe shrugged. "Yeah, that about sums it up."

She sighed. 

There was no way she could explain what had happened inside the Force and have it make sense to Poe. Even if she laid out her experience in the simplest terms, he wouldn't be able to understand. At best, he would shrug it off as her being kooky. At worst, he would declare her crazy and try to stop her from doing what she needed to do. 

Perhaps the best way to put Poe at ease was to give him the opportunity to have his say.

"Then what would you suggest we do next?" 

She could feel his relief bubble up before it spilled over into a self-confident grin. 

"Well, obviously we have to save our friends from the First Order's clutches, and it looks like Calrissian can arrange a way into Chandrila without being noticed."

Somehow, she was not surprised. "Then let's hear what he has to say." 

Poe turned to head back to the main lounge, but she stopped him with a firm grip around his arm. 

"I'm still going to need those crystals." 

He looked at the two glowing rocks on his palm, shook his head, and handed them over.

"I really don't get it," he said. "You Force people and your thing for archaic weapons."

Rey closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, feeling the crystals sing in harmony with her body. 

She wished he could understand. She wished everyone was able to feel the Force and know it as deeply as she did. 

"I'm sorry."

Poe shrugged. "Eh, it's all right. I get by fine without it."

In the main lounge, it appeared that Calrissian and R2-D2 were embroiled in some sort of argument, except Calrissian clearly didn't speak binary or he would have disassembled R2 for the obscene insinuation about his origin.

"What's going on?"

As Rey stepped closer, she could see a jumbled pile of charred droid parts on the floor in front of them. 

"Oh, stars, is that 3PO?"

Calrissian grunted in the affirmative. "Got hit by a grenade blast. R2 wants to put him back together, but - like I've been trying to tell him for the past five minutes - there's no point without the head!"

R2 bleeped another scathing insult to the man's parentage and extended his grasping tool, open clamps facing upward.

Rey crouched down beside the angry droid and placed a comforting hand on his dome. 

"I'm sorry, R2," she said softly. "I know he was your friend." 

The little droid expressed his grief in somber beeps and bloops. 

"I found it!" 

Finn's shout echoed up the ramp. A second later, he loped into the main lounge with C-3PO's decapitated head in his hands.

R2-D2 erupted into a series of joyful noises, wobbling precariously on his stabilizers.

Rey laughed. "He wants to know where it was." 

"It got stuck behind some rubble." Finn polished the gleaming metal with his sleeve. "Looks mostly okay though." 

One of C-3PO's ocular sensors was broken, exposing a gaping hole and a bunch of loose wires. 

Finn handed the head over to Calrissian who accepted it with a roll of his eyes. 

"Now we can put him back together." He turned to R2 with an exasperated grimace. "Happy?"

R2 said something very rude that Rey chose not to translate.

While the two got started on reassembling C-3PO, she pulled Finn aside. 

"You didn't have to do that." 

It couldn't have been easy for him to go back and dig through the rubble of last night's battle. 

"Never leave a man behind, right?" Finn's smile was brittle. "Besides, it's ... something to do. I can't ... I need something to do."

Rey nodded. "You can help R2 with 3PO. I need to talk to Calrissian anyway." 

She called out to the old man and he gladly surrendered his spot on the floor to Finn. R2 also seemed happy with the new arrangement. The astromech prattled on as if Finn could understand the running commentary in binary. 

"What can I do for you, princess?" 

Rey gnashed her teeth. She was about to correct him, again, but then she thought better of it.

"Poe said you have a plan to get us into Chandrila?" 

Calrissian smiled. "I'll do you one better. I can get you right into the Senate Complex."

"How?" 

"A friend of mine. You met her on Lonera. Smart as a whip, pretty face, legs for days ... all four of them."

"Varish Vicly?" 

Calrissian nodded. "She's got an exclusive invitation to the official ceremony tomorrow. Looks like she's the only senator who managed to take her career into the new regime. They chose her to be a member of the emperor's personal council."

"Why would she risk it? She didn't even help me get Poe out of prison." 

"Didn't she?" Calrissian raised his brows. "Just who do you think sent me to save you, princess?" 

 

Varish Vicly's convoy was the most ostentatious display of wealth Rey had ever seen. As the Millennium Falcon approached the hangar bay of the behemoth capital ship, she stared open mouthed at the gleaming golden hull and the jewel encrusted view ports, sensor arrays, and surface canons. 

Where First Order ships were sharp edged and unadorned, the Loneran fleet appeared to flout practicality in favor of beauty. The elegant shapes and swirling lines reminded Rey of the symbols and images in the ancient Jedi texts. 

What the surrounding battle cruisers lacked in size, they made up for in brazen flamboyance. Their laser canons were definitely longer than necessary and more intricately engraved than any weapon had a right to be.

The former senator greeted them in a comfortable visitor lounge with plush seating and a table brimming with delicacies, most of which Rey had never seen and only identified as food because they sat on silver serving plates. 

"Welcome." Varish Vicly extended her long forelimbs and beckoned them closer. "Enjoy the comfort my wealth brings." 

"Varish!" 

Calrissian broke out into a charming smile and approached the Loneran with open arms. When he was close he swept one forelimb into his hand and pressed a kiss to the back of her long fingers as he executed an elegant bow.

"Gorgeous as ever and unmatched in your generosity." 

Rey had the feeling she was witnessing some sort of coded exchange, but she didn't have time to mull over it. They needed to get to Chandrila before the ceremony, and she had yet to finish putting together the lightsaber hilt. 

"It's nice to see you again," she said with a smile. "These are my friends, Poe and Finn. Calrissian said you could help us get into the Senate Complex?"

"Did he now?" 

Varish pulled her limb from his hand, turned her silky golden head, and pinned him with a look. 

"And how did he propose I do that without risking my status as a member of the newly elected emperor's council and putting all of us in danger of being executed?"

Calrissian's smile did not diminish one bit. His brown eyes sparkled as he wagged his brows. 

"I have a plan. I assume you still travel with a suitably sized personal protection detail?" 

It took some convincing, but, in the end, Varish Vicly agreed. 

Rey, Finn, and Poe would disguise themselves as part of the security detail. The uniforms were as opulent as she had come to expect from the Lonerans, and the elaborate helmets with lion-faced visors would hide their faces. Luckily, the Lonerans were known to outsource the duty of personal protection to other species. 

Once they split from the group to free Commander D'Acy and the others, they would be on their own. Should they be discovered, Varish would deny any knowledge of their plan and claim they had infiltrated the security detail with nefarious methods.

While her friends were enjoying the food and drink from the buffet table, Rey pulled Calrissian aside. 

"If this is going to work, the Falcon can't be anywhere near the Loneran convoy." 

"I've thought about that," he said. "The First Order might check the hangar, but I'm sure Varish can-"

"No. I need you to do something for me. For Chewie, really." 

Calrissian laughed, but then he stepped closer and dropped his boisterous demeanor.

"What do you need?"

"Bring Chewie home to his family for a proper burial. Take the Falcon." 

"Are you sure? The old battle barge might come in handy if you need a last minute escape." 

Rey smiled. "I'm sure." 

Before Calrissian could ask her any uncomfortable questions, she changed the subject to C-3PO and the extensive damage he'd suffered in the battle on Ahch-To. When Calrissian suggested he could take the protocol droid with him for a little restoration and recalibration on Kashyyyk, she was happy to agree. 

"But let me break the news to R2," she insisted. "We need him here and I don't think he'll like being separated from 3PO again so soon." 

"You got it, princess. " 

Rey still cringed at the moniker, but she had given up trying to correct him. 

"I'll go get the Falcon ready for take off," he said with a grin that put dimples on his cheeks. "Unless you have any more instructions on taking care of your ship?"

She ignored the bait. "I'm sure you'll do right by her." 

 

They arrived on Chandrila long after nightfall. A small shuttle took the Loneran delegation from the main landing pad on the outskirts of Hanna City to the Senate Complex in the center.

An honor guard of First Order officers and stormtroopers lined the red carpet that extended from the designated shuttle pad to the main entrance of the capitol building.

Rey could feel his presence the moment she set foot on the ground. A sense of anticipation slammed into her like a blast of hot wind, driving out the chilly air. 

She tightened her grip on her staff and held her head high, resisting the urge to look over to the other side of Varish Vicly where Finn and Poe had replaced two more members of the senator’s eight person security team.

It wasn’t until the doors to the private guest quarters assigned to the Loneran envoy closed behind them that Rey breathed a sigh of relief. They had cleared the first hurdle. 

Now, they would have to sit tight until the ceremony began in the morning. Their plan stood the best chance of success while everyone’s eyes were on the new emperor during his grand opening speech. 

A cold feeling settled in Rey’s gut. 

Her eyes wandered to the only other female security detail. 

Rey had managed to corner the Kalzerian for an unnoticed one-on-one conversation before they had landed on the planet. 

The grey skinned woman sneered, flashing a row of sharp black teeth. 

Rey averted her gaze.

“I’m going to try to get some sleep.” 

Finn and Poe barely looked up from their game of dejarik.

Alone on her cot, she tried to keep herself from drifting off. 

“You’re here.” 

His voice sent a shiver down her spine. 

“Why won’t you come to me?” 

She squeezed her eyes shut. Part of her wanted nothing more. She could feel the powerful urge to move, get out of bed, rush down the hallways. Find him. Reconnect.

“Yes.” 

“No.” She struggled to breathe.

“You’re afraid.” His surprise was tangible through their connection. 

“Aren’t you?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

Amusement and fear blended like bitterfruit and honey. She pursed her lips in a grimace. 

“You can’t hide forever,” he teased.

“Tomorrow,” she conceded.

They didn’t speak again, but his presence never withdrew and she never shut him out.

 

Morning came too soon. 

As the Loneran delegation headed toward the throne room for the official ceremony, Rey watched Finn, Poe, and a gold plated, jewel encrusted R2-D2 split from the group in the company of the female Kalzerian. 

Even though Rey was relieved her ploy had worked, a part of her was disappointed her friends hadn’t noticed. The Kalzerian didn’t even carry a staff. 

As she stepped into the throne room, her eyes were immediately drawn to the dais at the head of the spacious hall. 

Dressed in fitted black leather with his hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, the man on the throne was a stranger. The only part of him she recognized was the scar she had put on his face.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end. I'm sorry for the long wait and I hope this final chapter won't disappoint. Please heed the warnings. Not every story has a happy ending. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and any feedback is greatly appreciated.
> 
> ###### 

**XX**

He watched quietly as the last handful of delegations arrived in a steady trickle. While some of the guests had congregated well before the official start time of the ceremony, others had chosen to wait until the final moment, among them the notoriously pompous Lonerans.

Along the right flank of the dais, General Hux had assembled an honor guard worthy of a king, placing himself front and center of the former High Command, half a dozen high ranking officers, and a platoon of stormtroopers. 

Ransolm Casterfo had been put in a conspicuous location close to the honor guard. In response, the official envoy from Riosa had chosen to assemble his group at a noticeable distance from the former traitor to the Republic. 

Beside the throne, the Knights of Ren stood guard in a straight, unbreakable line.

The doors to the throne room closed with a reverberating bang, announcing the beginning of the ceremony. 

An expectant hush rolled through the assembled delegations, their emotions amplified in the growing silence. 

Somewhere among them shone the Force that sang in harmony with his own. 

She was here. 

He could feel her presence, thrumming like the wings of a hummingbird. 

His eyes scanned the crowd, trying to pinpoint her location in the sea of jumbled energy signatures.

As the silence stretched on, the audience became restless, waiting for their new emperor to speak. 

He rose from his throne and stepped forward, head held high, one hand resting comfortably on the hilt of his lightsaber, at ease and buoyed by the knowledge that she was close. 

He smiled. 

“I do not possess my mother’s aptitude for rousing speeches or my father’s charming wit." He projected his voice. It echoed off the walls and filled the cavernous hall. "However, my grandfather's legacy has bestowed on me a far greater power." 

A spike of apprehension surged through the assembled guests. The legend of Darth Vader had not yet passed into obscurity. 

"Through the Force, I will be the sword and shield that enforces lasting peace throughout the galaxy.” 

He let the Force flow through him and into the crowd, allowing them to feel the ethereal power that could lift them up or crush them into the ground. 

"But I don't intend to do it alone." 

His eyes searched the sea of faces, some uncomfortable, some expectant, others gleeful, filled with triumph. None of them meant anything to him. There was only one he longed to see.

"Step forward, Rey. You don't need to hide any longer. Join me."

In the corner of his eye, General Hux nearly choked on his own spit and began to frantically scan the crowd.

There was a murmur among the guests as everyone looked around to identify Rey among them. 

Her signature brightened, and, like a tuning fork being struck, he felt himself vibrate with it down to the marrow in his bones. His gaze found her before she had taken a single step.

Dressed in resplendent golden armor, she came toward him from the Loneran delegation. He only caught a glimpse of the leonine visor before she removed her helmet and dropped it to the ground.

"That's not the way our story ends." 

She raised her voice above the din of gasps and muttering, swung her staff around, and brandished it at him. 

He shook his head. She couldn't be serious. How could she do this when they had both seen the future? Didn't they both want the same? Peace. Harmony. 

"I won't fight you," he said. 

"That'll make it easier for me."

Her fingers twisted around her staff. A bright golden lightsaber blade hummed to life at the top. 

His body sang as it recognized the crystal they had created. 

He had less than a second to stop the inevitable. 

The stormtroopers reached for their weapons.

"Don't harm her!" 

His hand returned to his own lightsaber in the nick of time to parry her first blow. 

"Why?" 

Their eyes met across the shimmering blades. The red light reflected in her irises, giving them a furious glow, but her face was calm.

"Because this is how it has to be." 

"No!"

He wouldn't accept that. He had seen what they could be. They both had. This was not the end. He wouldn't allow it. 

With a mighty push he threw her away from him, away from the blade that would take her life if he let her have her way. 

She collided hard with the floor but rolled gracefully back onto her feet and brandished her staff at him.

"Don't do this," he pleaded. 

She chuckled. "Don't go this way?"

"I won't let you." 

His fighting style had always been blunt: heavy swipes, cumbersome lunges, and straight forward thrusts. His large body didn’t have room for grace.

She danced around him, light on her feet, free of the burden of pain and fear that he carried like lead weights under his skin. 

Each blow missed as if she could see his movements before he even thought about making them. 

He was desperate to find an opening. If he could best her without harming her, he could still salvage their future.

She struck him down, again and again, averting every one of his attacks. A swift circle around him brought her into perfect position. 

He paused, opened his fist. 

Her staff slammed down onto the hilt of his saber. The crystal inside it shattered with a deafening scream. 

The blast flung him through the air until his back impacted the ground with a heavy crash and slid to a noisy stop on the marble. 

The stormtroopers reached for their weapons again, but General Hux made them stand down with a raised hand and a calculating gleam in his eyes. Predictable. 

Rey didn’t spare them a glance as she crossed the distance between them in a handful of long strides. When she stood in front of him, she tucked her staff against her left shoulder and pulled something from behind her back. 

The silver hilt of a lightsaber glinted in her hand.

“Surrender,” she said, "or it ends today."

He could feel tears prick at his eyes. The air felt like molasses in his lungs. She knew what it would mean. They had seen how it would end if he surrendered. 

"No." 

He snatched the weapon from her hand and activated it, stunned by its bright golden beam as their energy sang inside him. Then he lunged.

Rey parried his attack without hesitation. He was too wrapped up in his pain and fear to see clearly. She didn't have that problem.

She accepted every lunge, every dark thought, every bit of his soul he bared in desperation. He exhausted himself against her endless calm. 

It didn’t take long before she struck him down again.

The tip of her lightsaber staff pointed just below his chin. 

“I won’t kill you,” she promised. “Surrender.” 

He rolled out of her reach onto his feet and lunged again. 

They fought. He lost. She offered.

“Surrender.” 

He drained himself, wielding the saber she had crafted for him, desperate to land a strike as she danced out of the way again and again. 

One wrong step. He was back on the ground. She reached out her hand. 

“Surrender.” 

He roared back into the fight, willing to destroy himself in the effort to win the upper hand. It didn’t change anything. It couldn't.

A dozen more times, maybe a hundred. Every time he ended up on his back. Every time he got back up until he finally, finally crashed to his knees in front of her and raised his eyes like a sinner in the presence of divinity.

“Why?”

“Don't you see?" she said. "It’s the only way to make this right.” 

She reached out her hand one more time.

Instead of taking it, he bowed to it. He felt her fingers slide through his hair and sank against her, resting his forehead on her stomach.

The emperor was on his knees in the middle of the throne room, and the woman who had bested him stood guard, her staff in one hand as her other cradled his heavy head against her. 

Gentle fingers coaxed him into raising his face. As she looked at him, her hand rested lightly against his blemished cheek, the pad of her thumb tracing over the furrowed ridge of the scar she had given him. 

She was beautiful. His salvation and his doom. 

“Rey,” he sighed her name in surrender.

“Traitor!" 

General Hux’s shout broke the charged silence. 

"Kill her. Kill them both!”

The platoon of stormtroopers advanced, firing their blasters. 

He was on his feet, deflecting the blasts with his lightsaber. Once again they stood back to back, facing their enemies. 

He caught a glimpse of Hux’s manic leer inside the armored horde and swore he would put an end to the cur, once and for all. 

“Knights,” he roared over the high pitched whine of blaster fire. “Protect her.” 

The Knights of Ren moved as one, closing rank around Rey, as he swept toward the stormtroopers.

Around them, the crowd screamed and scattered in all directions, trying to escape the throne room as more troopers poured in through the same doors. 

While the ceremonial guard were powerless against lightsabers at close range, the reinforcements arrived with riot control gear, shields and batons making them much more suitable opponents. 

He used the Force to keep them at bay, but the effort left him exposed. 

Behind him, Rey fought alongside his Knights, cutting through their enemies with ruthless certainty. Every time she used the Force, it reverberated through him.

There were simply too many. He had drained himself in the fight against Rey.

Behind him, the doors burst open, doubtless spilling more stormtroopers into the hall.

“Rey!” 

He recognized the boy's voice and the bright flare of Rey's hope that resonated across their bond. FN-2187.

“Finn!” 

The rebels had freed the prisoners, and now they risked everything to save one of their own. 

He laughed. 

The closest stormtroopers faltered at the sound of his mad barking, and he didn't waste the opportunity. 

Resolve flooded his veins like ice cold water. 

This was how it would end.

He raised his lightsaber and cut his way through the enemy with murderous determination. 

His eyes lit upon his chosen target. Hux was straight ahead, no more than a dozen quick steps between them, turning swiftly on his heels as he fired shots into the skirmishing crowd. Another half turn and the general's blaster was leveled at him. 

Cold blue eyes gleamed with calculated triumph. Hux smirked and pulled the trigger. 

The blast stopped in mid air between them, unable to cross the distance. 

Another shot fired. 

He felt burning heat sear past his cheek and watched Hux's snarl disappear in a flash of shock at the burning mark between his eyes. The general fell on the spot, dead. 

“Kylo Ren!” 

He whirled around and faced the wave of raw emotion directed at him. 

“FN-2187.”

The boy leveled his blaster at him, finger on the trigger, grief roiling up in a billowing cloud charged with fury. 

“For Rose.” 

He raised his hand to wipe away the impertinent brat, but Rey's presence drove into him like lightning. 

“No!” 

As his body vibrated down to the marrow in his bones and the universe opened up around them, he never felt the plasma bolt penetrate his chest and burn through his heart.   
They watched his body sag to the ground. 

They watched a stormtrooper's laser ax strike down her motionless body mere steps from where he had fallen.

“I wasn't going to harm the boy.” 

“I know that now.” 

Below them, Finn rushed to the empty husk, trying in vain to revive Rey.

“We could have ruled.”

“We never would have found peace.” 

The combatants carried on, heedless that their leaders had fallen. 

At odds with the violence below, a sense of peace washed over them as they retreated toward the void of eternity. 

“I wish they could feel it.” 

“Maybe they can.” 

The Force flowed through them and into the world, surrounding and penetrating all things. 

Rey's cold hand dissolved inside the clutching grasp of Finn's warm fingers as her body burst into glowing particles of light that shimmered all around him. 

Not far away, the dark emperor dissolved in a similar fashion, particles like obsidian dust rising into the air to mingle among their light brethren. 

The combatants stopped and stared as the swirling galaxy of light and darkness slowly grew above their heads. 

Infinite possibilities filled their minds and hearts, salvation and doom, a million different paths forged by a million different choices, but always consistent in that the choice was theirs to make.

Lightning cracked down from the center of the revolving galaxy. Where it struck, the marble split asunder, the ground began to shake, and, with a mighty groan, a tree grew from the earth beneath, its golden-brown branches reaching upward and out in all directions. 

At its roots, gurgling dark water began to rise and spread, surrounding the tree in a bottomless pond.

A thunderous voice filled the hall and echoed inside the mind of every being who stood witness.

“The Force is with you, always.” 

In the aftermath of what would become the final chapter of the legend of the Force, many choices were made. 

Of those who stood witness to the miracle, some chose to forge a new system based on the principle of balance, a federation of free planets.

Some chose to return to their home-world and spread a new gospel among their people. 

Some chose to turn their back on the miracle and began to plot the demise of the new federation. 

Some chose to find peace in a simple life, honoring the memory of their loved ones. 

With every choice, the world moved on, and history wore itself into time like water into stone as the galaxy far, far away spun inside the infinite universe. 

The End.


End file.
